Kingdom Hospital Story
by ChandaK562
Summary: A Kingdom Hospital story with a tiny crossover with the Harry Potter Universe. As the fate of the hospital starts to come to a head, can it be saved and can Mary be freed?
1. Default Chapter

This is an idea I came up with for a Kingdom Hospital story. I hope you won't find it too terrible. Later in the story there will be a bit of crossover with the Harry Potter universe but the crossover won't involve anything that you really need to have read the Harry Potter books to understand.  
  
"Bye, Mona," the young girl said as she reached out and patted the head of the younger girl. "We'll be back to see you in a few days, okay?"  
  
"Yeah, and you know, there's an artist that's just a couple of floors up, I think." The other girl in the room, maybe only a year older than the first girl said as she glanced around at the paint covering the walls. "Maybe if he's feeling up to it he can give you some lessons or something? Would you like that?"  
  
"Just be sure not to let Dr. James' brother try giving you lessons.  
They threw him out of art school, you know." the first girl said with a grin.  
  
"And paralegal school. And the seminary. Bree, we better be getting a move on. Professor Jensen's going to be here soon to pick us up." the second girl told her sister as she glanced down at her watch.  
  
"Coming, Aubrey." Breanna said as she snatched up the backpack on the floor and followed her sister towards the door. "Bye, Mona." The two didn't notice the book that had slipped from the pack onto the floor and the suddenly aware look in Mona Klingerman's eyes.  
  
Lona Massingale moved swiftly but carefully through the corridors of Kingdom Hospital, alert for any of her co-workers, especially one in particular that she needed to see immediately. She pulled her coat, the heaviest winter coat that she could find, more securely around her as she scanned the halls. Elmer always followed her around like a puppy so where in the world was he now when she needed him?  
  
"Lona?" She spin around keeping a tight grip on her coat as Christine Draper suddenly appeared behind her.  
"What's with the coat? Is the air in the sleep lab on the fritz again?" Christine asked with a slight frown. "Someone said they thought they saw Johnny down in the basement if you need it looked at."  
  
"No, no, I'm sure I can get it adjusted. No need to bother Johnny." Not that the man could ever be found to be bothered with work anyway. "Have you seen Elmer anywhere?"  
  
"I think he's still doing rounds." Christine said with a puzzled look on her face. Usually Elmer would be the last person Lona would be asking about, well, unless she was trying to avoid him.  
  
"Rounds. What floor?" Lona looked up and down the corridor,  
knowing that at any moment someone could come along and...  
  
"I think he was heading for the seventh floor the last time I saw him."  
  
"Seventh floor. Thanks." Lona hurried down the hall again with Christine watching her retreating form with a puzzled expression for a moment before shaking her head. It seemed that there was always something strange going on in Kingdom Hospital.  
  
Lona dodged around Otto's station, knowing if he spotted her there was no way that he would miss her little problem. Even before he had somehow had his eyes fixed, he wouldn't have been able to miss this one.  
She spotted Elmer's father, Louis Traff, just as she dodged into the elevator, slumping against the rear wall as the doors closed. That had been much too close.  
  
When the elevator doors slid open on the seventh floor, Lona started to hurry out, almost running into Elmer.  
  
"Lona?" Elmer reached out an arm to steady her as she swayed back with the impact. "What are you doing up here?"  
  
"I need to see you in the sleep lab, now." Lona glanced down the hall as she spoke but things appeared clear.  
  
"You..." Elmer was confused for a moment but then he started to slowly smile. Lona had never invited him to the sleep lab before, well not unless she was needing a guinea pig for something. Maybe what had happened the day before... Sure, it had been weird just suddenly ending up in that strange morgue but maybe Lona thought wierd was a turn-on, or something?  
Wierd, wierd. He was sure he could think up some more wierd stuff if it would....  
  
"Just come on, Elmer, before someone sees us." Lona motioned impatiently to follow her into the elevator. The two were too involved in the situation at hand to notice the small figure slipping around them and sliding into the far corner of the elevator. 


	2. chapter 2

As soon as the elevator opened, Lona poked her head out, making sure that the coast was clear before hurrying down the hall towards the sleep lab, motioning impatiently for Elmer to hurry.  
  
A moment after they were gone, the elevator door slid open again and Mona stepped out, her eyes fixed on the book in her hands as she headed down the hallway in the opposite direction from Lona and Elmer. Her bare feet made hardly any sound on the cold hospital floor and she swayed slightly back and forth as she walked. A stick, a stick. There had to be a stick somewhere around here.  
  
As they entered the sleep lab, Elmer moved towards Lona. He started to speak, one of his usual attempts at flirtation that got him slapped half the time but he stopped as Lona slumped back against the wall.  
"Lona?" he said a bit hesitantly as he stared at her, noticing suddenly the unnaturally pale color of her skin and the exhausted, washed out expression on her face. He reached out, gently touching her face,  
surprised when she didn't push him away. Her skin was clammy, cool. How could she be cold in that big coat?  
  
"You know, I'm starting to think that some of the things that Mrs.  
Druse says about something being seriously wrong in Kingdom Hospital are right." Lona closed her eyes for a moment, barely able to force them open once more to look at Elmer.  
  
"Yeah, especially after what happened..." Elmer abruptly stopped,  
not wanting to hear Lona say anything about what had happened between them the night before, not wanting to hear her say it had been a mistake, what he was sure she was about to say. He reached out, putting a hand on her shoulder. "Listen, you don't look so hot. Why don't we go find my dad and get him to take a look at you? I heard that there's this flu bug going around that..."  
  
"Elmer, I don't think you want your father to see what's wrong with me." Lona let out a soft laugh as she pushed herself away from the wall,  
swaying slightly as she reached for the sleeve of her coat and started to pull it off.  
  
"Here, let me help you with that." Elmer said as he reached out to give her a hand. He was a bit reluctant to say too much, knowing with every word that he spoke the odd were going up that he would say something to tick Lona off and then things would be right back the way they were before the incident of the night before. "Listen, Lona, why don't you let me run you home? It looks like you need to be in bed or something."  
She was swaying more now, and as Elmer slipped her coat fully off,  
Lona knew she couldn't stay on her feet much longer. "I think bed's the last place I needed to be, don't you, Elmer?" She said, a slightly hysterical laugh slipping into her voice as she gestured with one hand at her stomach. Her eyes rolled up in her head and before Elmer could catch her, she crumpled into a heap on the floor. 


	3. chapter 3

Elmer stared in shock at Lona laying crumpled on the floor, his eyes moving back and forth from her deathly pale face to the very obvious and very sudden growth of her stomach.  
  
"Lona?" Elmer whispered, shaking his head, feeling as if every med school class he had ever taken had suddenly flown right out of his head.  
It felt like an eternity before he could move, dropping down by her side and reaching out hesitantly, felling for her pulse with one hand as he tried to move her into what he hoped was a more comfortable position with the other.  
  
"Oh, don't be dead. Please don't be dead." He murmured as he frantically sought for some sign of life. His eyes were automatically drawn back to the swell of her stomach that the coat had hidden. Pregnant?  
Elmer knew he was a little inexperienced with women but he was fairly sure he would have noticed if Lona had been pregnant the night before.  
  
A faint sigh of relief slipped out when he finally found a pulse so rapid that he almost missed it, her chest slightly trembling with weak breathing. "Lona?" Elmer called her name again. "Come on, time to wake up now." He closed his eyes for a moment, trying to focus on the classes he had had that covered pregnancy. If Lona really was pregnant... What was he thinking, if? It was pretty obvious she was somehow.  
  
"Lona? Please wake up now?" he called as he reached down,  
gathering her into his arms and struggling to his feet again. He shook his head slowly, not sure what in the world to do now, before heading into the lab area and laying her down on one of the beds. "Lona?"  
  
He sat on the edge beside her, sure that there was something that he should be doing but at the moment not really sure what it was. He reached out a hand and gently brushed her hair back from her face, trying not to panic at the sight of her pale, almost deathlike skin. Maybe he ought to call Hook and get him to come down? How many more files could he possibly need stolen from medical records in exchange for a favor anyway?  
  
"Lona?" Why wasn't she waking up? Elmer rubbed one of her cold hands, as he reached down and laid the other hand on her stomach. He knew there was something that he should do to check the baby.... Baby, he still couldn't quiet believe that Lona was pregnant somehow. People didn't just suddenly end up nine months pregnant overnight. His eyes widened as he suddenly felt movement beneath his fingers. His other hand moved down as well, one hand resting on each side of her stomach now, feeling the rapid movement. Did that mean that the baby was alright? He thought it did but... Why wasn't she waking up?  
  
"Mrs. Druse if only you knew how right you are about weird things happening here," Elmer murmured under his breath as he reached up and stroked Lona's face. "Lona?" He called her name louder this time desperately hoping for a response. He didn't think she was bleeding but.  
"Lona, please wake up!" 


	4. chapter 4

Mona slowly padded down the hall, this time paying a bit more attention to her surroundings as she looked rapidly from the objects she was holding to the corridor in front of her. She still held the book in one hand, the other clutching a long, slender piece of wood, polished smooth with a deep ebony sheen. Suddenly, Mona stopped when she heard a familiar voice. The little girl pressed herself against the wall as Dr.  
Stegman came down the hall followed by Brenda, his want to be girlfriend.  
  
Mona frowned as she observed him. She didn't quiet understand what had happened to her but she knew that Stegman had done something, that she had been different before he had touched her. Mona silently stepped away from the wall, glancing at the book one last time before pointing the wand at Stegman's back.  
  
Something, a small rustling sound, made Stegman turn just as Mona pointed the wand at him. His brow furrowed as he saw the girl. What was she doing down here? With the way her nut was messed up, not that he was to blame for that and no one could prove he was, there was no way she could get all that way from pediatrics on her own.  
  
"What are you doing down here?" Stegman said as he plastered a fake smile on his face and stepped towards Mona. "Why don't you give me that thing before you hurt yourself and we'll go back upstairs, hmmm." He reached out his hand to take the wand away from what he thought would be a totally passive child only to bit hit by a wave of sparks as Mona swished the wand. His hands went to the top of his head as he felt a sharp pain,  
only to feel a pair of long ears suddenly sprouting. Then suddenly he felt himself falling to his knees as his hands and feet transformed into hooves,  
a long tail sprouted from his rear end and grey fur covered his body.  
Brenda looked from Mona to the ass that was now standing in front of her, her eyes growing larger with each passing moment. "You.... You."  
She stammered as she stared at Mona for a moment before she suddenly turned and fled down the hall screaming.  
  
Mona walked over to the Stegman-ass, opening the book as she did so and checking again. It wasn't the frog she was hoping for but... She grabbed hold of the ass's fur and started down the hall with it beside her.  
She couldn't wait to find her friend and show her. 


	5. chapter 5

"Are you sure the book fell out in Mona's room?" Aubrey asked her sister as they hurried off the elevator on the pediatrics floor.  
  
"That's the only place I set the bag down. It has to be there."  
Breanna said with a worried frown on her face as the two hurried towards Mona's room. "I have an essay to work on. That book has to be there!"  
  
Aubrey pushed the door to Mona's room open and they stepped inside.  
"Mona, Bree forgot her...." she started to say as she glanced over towards the bed, her eyes widening as she noticed that Mona wasn't in her usual space rocking. "Mona?" Her eyes quickly scanned the room for any hiding places as she hurried over to the bathroom and pulled the door open.  
No Mona.  
  
"Where is she?" Bree bent down, peering under the bed in case her sister had missed anything, the missing textbook temporarily forgotten.  
"Mona?"  
  
"Do you think they took her for testing or something?" Aubrey said as she finished checking the closet.  
  
"I don't think so." Bree said slowly as she circled the room as if expecting Mona to possibly appear out of thin air. "We weren't gone that long and I don't think they would have let us visit if Mona was going to have testing or something. Mona?"  
  
"Where could she be?" Aubrey whispered as he sister finally stopped circling the room, the fact that Mona really was missing finally sinking in. "She's always in here."  
  
"Maybe she's feeling better and took a walk or something?" Bree said hopefully.  
  
"Or maybe Stegman got her." Aubrey whispered as a horrible idea suddenly hit her. Stegman was nuts. Everyone knew that. What if he thought somehow that getting rid of Mona might save him from the lawsuit.  
"Bree, we've got to find her!"  
  
Mona slipped off of the elevator once more dragging the Stegman-ass by his ear. She wasn't sure where he friend was but she could sense something, a feeling like electricity dancing in the air. She had felt that before when the other little girl came to visit her. Then there were the other things that she felt, the dark, cold feelings.... She wasn't sure what created that but it was very bad, worse than Stegman.  
  
Mona ducked into an empty room, pulling the ass with her, as a nurse hurried past. She started to step out again as soon as the coast was clear but stopped, looking up with a puzzled expression. There was that bad, cold feeling again, stronger than it had ever been down in her room.  
She closed her eyes for a moment, letting the feelings was over her. She didn't know what the bad feeling meant but it was coming from the same place as she could sense the feeling her friend caused.  
  
Mona hurried out of the room, pulling harder on the ass this time,  
as she headed down the hallway as fast as she could go. Suddenly the cold feeling hit her full force, almost bringing the girl to her knees with it's intensity. Mona swayed as she forced herself to move to the door of the room in front of her, her grip on the ass's ear dropping as she did so.  
She peered through the crack in the door, making herself as small as possible so she wouldn't be seen. Mona's eyes widened as she watched. Her friend was there, holding the hand of an older woman as some of the doctors, nice ones, not like Stegman, gathered around the bedside of a man with bandages on his head. There was someone else there, though, a boy, a boy who exuded menace and evil. He moved towards the man in the bed, his hand reaching out for him. Mona closed her eyes for a moment, afraid to look. The boy was going to do something very bad. 


	6. chapter 6

"No!" Mona opened her eyes forcing herself to look as she heard a scream from within the room. The boy had reached out his hand grabbing at the man in the bed's throat. Her friend was vainly trying to pull him away as the monitors went crazy.  
  
"No, Paul!" Mary cried as she struggled against him. "Ant...."  
  
"No you don't!" Paul said as he temporarily released his grip on Peter's throat and snatched Mary up, a hand firmly clasped over her mouth.  
"You still don't get it, do you, kid? You can't stop us. No one can stop us!"  
  
Mona bit her lip, looking frantically around the room for any sign that someone had noticed what was going on. The older woman was looking right at the boy and the struggling girl he held tight in his arms but she had a puzzled look on her face like she wasn't sure what was happening.  
Why wasn't anyone helping her friend?  
  
'Help her! Someone help her!' Mona opened her mouth and tried to scream at the grownups but nothing, not even a squeak slipped from her throat. She looked down at the wand she was still holding in her hands,  
raising it as she pushed the door open a bit more. If the grownups couldn't help.... The boy's back was to her, so maybe....  
  
Mona raised the wand and pointed it at him, not sure exactly of what to do. 'Let her go!' she vainly tried to scream as she swished the wand hoping it would somehow do something, anything to help.  
  
"There's something in this room, something..." Sally stared at the spot where Mary was struggling against Paul, not knowing what was going on but sensing it none the less. Suddenly bright blue flames shot across the room, causing her to jump back several steps quickly.  
  
Paul snarled as the flames grazed his back, his grip on Mary loosening and the little girl wiggling out of his grasp. He turned to face Mona, standing in the doorway, slightly staggered from the burst of fire.  
His fangs flashed as he advanced on the girl. What was it with these kids anyway, always getting in his way?  
  
"Mona?" Hook said as he looked at the girl standing in the doorway, pointing some sort of stick at what appeared to be empty air.  
What was she doing here? After what Stegman had done to her, after what he had seen in the contents of that report.... "Mrs. Druse..."  
  
Mona forced herself to glare at Paul, darting forward to Mary's side and jabbing at him with the wand. She had turned that awful doctor into an ass and he was only slightly less frightening than this boy. If he didn't go away, she would just turn him into something too!  
  
"So, you found a friend, did you?" Paul said with a sinister chuckle as he started towards the two girls, Mona trying to force Mary behind her as he approached. "Well, you better tell her to keep out of my way or...."  
  
"Or what, you big bully? Why don't you pick on someone your own size!" a voice called from the doorway causing Paul to spin to meet this new entrant into the conflict.  
  
"Leave them alone!" Breanna held her wand steady like her sister's, pointed at the boy. Neither girl was sure what was going on but from how that boy was talking, they were pretty sure he wasn't here to visit and comfort the sick.  
  
"What is this? Little girls' week or something? You think you can stop me?" His fangs flashed as he moved towards these new intruders,  
forgetting temporarily the two younger girls.  
  
"We learned how to get rid of your kind before breakfast!" Aubrey said with what she hoped was a confident air as she and her sister swished their wands in unison, slamming Paul back towards the wall with a bright red light just as another wave of the blue flames smacked into him again.  
  
"You'll pay for that!" Paul staggered back, glaring around the room before fading out through the wall. "You'll pay!"  
  
"Could someone tell me what just happened here?" Hook asked as he looked rapidly from Sally to the two newcomers.  
  
'What are you?' Peter thought as his eyes moved from the frightened Mary, standing at his bedside holding Mona's hand, to the two older girls in the doorway.  
  
"We're witches." Breanna responded as if she had heard exactly what Peter had thought. "Do you mind if we come in? I think we might need to talk." 


	7. chapter 7

Aubrey entered the room with her sister right behind her. "Mona,  
are you okay? And do you have something to do with that ass in the hall by some chance?" She asked with a grin.  
  
Mona started to open her mouth but stopped, realizing it would do no good. She turned towards Mary, who was still standing a bit behind her with one small hand covering Mona's on the wand, Mona's face clearly showed the frustration she was feeling.  
  
"Mona can't talk," Mary said as she edged around her friend and looked over at the other girls with a slightly guarded expression on her face. They had drove Paul away but the way they had done it, what Mona had done.... Paul was the only one Mary had seen who had been able to do things like that before, Paul and the bad doctor. Mary glanced towards the far wall wishing Antubis was there.  
  
"Mary?" Breanna whisped, her eyes widening as she caught sight of the girl standing by Mona. She hurried across the room to the girls,  
reaching out and pulling Mary forward a bit so she could get a better look at her. "Little Mary Jensen, it is you! Aubrey!" She called for her sister as she wrapped her arms around Mary, almost lifting her off the floor in a hug.  
  
"Mary?" Aubrey moved over to join her sister, looking at Mary in silence for a moment before joining her sister in hugging the girl tightly.  
"There's the bell and everything," she murmured as they released Mary for a moment, both girls now staring at her in a kind of wondrous shock.  
"Where in the world have you been? Your brother's been looking everywhere for you for over a hundred years!"  
  
"You know her?" Sally asked suddenly, causing the two older girls to recall that there were actually other people in the room besides themselves, Mary and Mona.  
  
"And can everyone in here see her?" Hook added, looking over at Christine and Natalie for some sort of confirmation that they were seeing what he was before fixing his eyes on Mary again. The girl had just appeared there at Mona's side when whatever had happened was happening.  
  
"Of course we know her. Everyone at school knows who Mary is,"  
Breanna said, looking at the adults in puzzlement for a moment, confused that they didn't know something that was an everyday fact.  
  
"They aren't like us, Bree. They wouldn't know," Aubrey said with a chuckle as she looked over at her sister before turning to address the others. "We're witches," she repeated, "well, sort of witches in training. Mary's brother teaches advanced Defense Against the Dark Arts at our school. He had a portrait done of Mary about a hundred years ago.  
EVERYONE knows who she is and how she disappeared."  
  
"My brother?" Mary whispered as she looked up at the two older girls. It had been so long since she had thought about her life before the fire, since she had remembered her family. Being trapped here was pain enough but to remember that while she was trapped here everyone she had known and loved had gone on.... She closed her eyes for a moment, tears slipping past her lashes as she struggled to recall her siblings. It had been so long.... "Michael?" A small face finally came to her, a small boy who had clung to her on her last day with her family as if he had sensed what was about to happen.  
  
Breanna nodded. "He misses you, Mary. He's tried to find you for years. "Will you come with us?" She ignored the adults looking at them,  
obviously wanting an explanation for what was going on, the memory of their teacher's sad face at the thought of his lost sister her only focus. He'd waited over a hundred years to get Mary back. They could just wait a few minutes for their explanation. "Professor Jensen's right downstairs. Will you let us take you to him?"  
  
Mary looked up at the girls, clearly torn. The chance to be with a member of her family again tugged at her but at the same time if she left what would happen to the hospital and everyone inside when the earthquake hit? She couldn't abandon them but....  
  
'Mary, will it change things if you're not here?' Peter looked over at the girls, seeing the expression on Mary's face. 'If you're not here when the earthquake hits to ring your bell...."  
  
"Earthquake? What do you mean, an earthquake is going to hit?"  
Aubrey looked toward Peter with a puzzled expression. What in the world was he talking about, well not really talking since it didn't seem like anyone else but the girls could hear him but....  
  
"There's going to be an earthquake, a big one this time." Mary said slowly, a tear slipping down her face. She couldn't leave, no matter how much she wanted to go to her brother. "When I ring my bell, hundreds will die."  
  
"The bell?" Aubrey and Breanna looked at each other, both of their brows furrowed in an almost identical expression of confusion.  
  
"Mary can't help it," Sally said, laying a comforting hand on the girl's shoulder as she spoke. "Mr. Rickman here has been helping us try to find a way to stop the earthquake."  
  
"We need the special dreamers." Mary said as she looked at the names Peter had written on the drawing of the séance. "Christa, Abel and Elmer."  
  
Mona moved closer to the bed, peering at the drawing for a moment.  
This must be the artist that Aubrey and Breanna had mentioned to her earlier. She wondered if her mother would pay for her to have lessons.  
And maybe witch lessons too? How much could they cost anyway? She reached out with a finger and touched Elmer's figure for a moment before turning and looking critically at the bell around Mary's neck. If the bell was the problem....  
  
"I think we need Professor Jensen too." Aubrey said slowly as she looked down at Mary's bell for a moment before turning to look at her sister in confusion again. "I don't think Mary's bell can do what you think it's going to." She hesitated for a moment, trying to recall what she had heard mentioned about the bell. "At least I don't think the bell could do that on its own. There would have to be something else going on for there to be destruction on the scale you're talking about."  
  
Mona reached out, tugging on Bree's sleeve, pointing towards the bell as she did so. Maybe the girls weren't sure that the bell was the real problem but just in case it was, it wasn't going to be ringing now!  
  
"She stuffed it with tissue." Hook chuckled as he walked around to the other side of the bed, bending down slightly to inspect Mona's handywork. He still couldn't quite believe that this elusive child was right there in front of them with what appeared to be every intention of staying right there. "Will that stop the bell from...."  
  
'Why don't you ask Snout Boy?' Peter thought as Antubis came through the wall. He noticed with a slight amusement that the anteater stopped, puzzled, and stared at the three other girls before moving towards Mary.  
  
"Whoa! Are you a familiar?" Bree said as she caught sight of Antubis. "I don't think I've ever seen an anteater familiar before!"  
  
"In a way," Antubis replied as Mary reached out and scratched him behind the ears, followed a second later by Mona. "And what are you?" He took a testing sniff of Mona as he spoke. Scent was definitely familiar.  
  
"We're witches. I'm Aubrey and this is my sister, Breanna." She give a little half smile as she suddenly recalled that they hadn't even bothered to introduce themselves to the grownups.  
  
"Witches. Haven't seen your kind in awhile." Antubis adjusted his head slightly so Mona could get to a particularly itchy spot behind one ear. "Well, you might want to be getting out of here fast. Think you girls made Paul mad."  
  
"Paul being mad isn't good." Mary said as she looked up at them.  
"Maybe you better leave before...."  
  
"What we need to do is get Professor Jensen." Breanna said with a determined look. "Vampy Boy has Dark written all over him and if anyone knows how to deal with dark stuff it's Professor Jensen."  
  
"Not to mention he knows more about that bell than anyone else,"  
Aubrey said as she reached out and took Mona's hand, motioning for her sister to take Mary.  
  
"Wait, Mr. Rickman has to come with us. He can help too." Mary said as she looked at Peter.  
  
Mona smiled, tugging her hand free and hurrying over to the door, A minute later she dragged the Stegman-ass inside and rapidly gestured to Mary.  
  
"Where did she get an ass?" Christine asked Hook as she stared at the girl, who it seemed was trying to fasten the ass to the foot of the bed somehow as she tried to communicate with the others. She was totally clueless about what was going on here but she could handle certain things;  
odd little Mary, the two girls saying they were witches, the giant anteater strolling through a solid wall, Mona, who was supposed to basically be a vegetable suddenly seeming normal, well normal for the hospital's standards. For some reason, though, the ass was throwing her.  
  
"It's Doctor Stegman." Mary said with a smile as she took Bree's hand and started towards the door, Antubis slipping behind Peter's bed to push as the ass, now tied with a sheet to the foot of the bed, pulled.  
"Mona says that if he helps pull it will be the only good thing he's done in this hospital. Are you coming?" 


	8. chapter 8

Elmer felt like they had been like this for an eternity, just sitting there, staring down at Lona's pale face with one hand resting on her stomach. "Lona?" He whispered her name not expecting a response now.  
It had been so long, too long. He abruptly stood and started towards the lab's phone. "Ummm, Lona, I'm going to call Dr. Hook, okay?" He wasn't sure if this was the right thing to do or not. The entire situation was just too strange. Lona suddenly turning up nine months pregnant and then for her to be unconscious for so long.... He hesitated for a moment before picking up the phone and dialing the number for Otto's desk. What if she died?  
  
"Uhhhh, Otto," Elmer hesitated as he spoke. Lona had obviously been trying to hide what was going on. Should he get someone else involved when she didn't want people to know? "Otto, can you page Dr. Hook to the sleep lab for me? Thanks." He forced the words out quickly and hung up the phone before he could change his mind.  
  
He moved back to Lona's side, sitting next to her on the bed once more and reaching out to hold her hand. "Listen, Lona, I know you were trying to keep this quiet, at least I think that's what you were doing but..." He reached out and touched her face, afraid that anything that he might say would just make a bigger mess. She was so pale. What if she did die? Sometimes it seemed like everyone connected to him died. His brother, his mother.... If Lona... And then there was the baby. If he was the father and he could only assume from the way that Lona dragged him down here that he was, didn't that make what was happening his fault? It was his dream were all of the wierd stuff happened. If Lona died, did that mean that he killed her?  
  
Suddenly he felt a slight motion from the woman in front of him.  
One hand moved up and stroked her forehead as the other clung to her hand.  
"Lona?" Please, oh, please let her be waking up. "Lona, it's Elmer, can you hear me?"  
  
"Elmer?" Lona's eyelids fluttered open slowly, confusion filling her face as she saw Elmer leaning over her. For a moment she feared that they were back in that morgue before she made out the familiar surroundings of the sleep lab.  
  
"It's okay. You just lay still, okay?" Elmer told her. "I called Hook to come down and take a look at you. Just lay still."  
  
"You called.... Why did you do that? And how did I get in here?"  
Lona murmured as she started to try to pull herself up into a sitting position so she could get off of the bed. Everything was a blur. She couldn't even remember how she had gotten to the hospital that morning.  
Come to thing of it, she couldn't remember how she had got home the night before either. And Elmer being there with her, especially after what had happened between them the night before....  
  
"No, just lay still, okay?" Elmer moved his hands to her shoulders to try to keep her from moving. He was sure that she would be furious about him attempting to restrain her like that but at the moment he didn't care. She had scared ten years off his life with that fainting spell. She could just stay laying down until Hook got down there. "Do you remember what happened?" The way she was looking, he didn't think she remembered a thing and there was so much he needed to ask her. The baby, was it his baby?  
  
"Remember what? Elmer...." Lona reached up, starting to push his hands away when suddenly a wave of dizziness washed over her and memories came rushing back. "Elmer!" A sharp pain gripped her around the middle as she struggled against the dizziness and she felt herself sliding into the blackness once more.  
  
"No, Lona, just stay awake! Stay awake!" Elmer frantically called as her eyes started to slip shut once more, her breathing becoming harsher,  
more labored. What if....  
  
"Get down here fast, Hook," he murmured to himself as he stroked Lona's face trying to bring her back to full awareness once more. 


	9. chapter 9

The group moved down the hall towards the elevators, arranged on either side of Peter's bed. Breanna had to fight to keep from rolling her eyes as they passed staff members who were seemingly oblivious to the odd picture they had to make with an ass tugging on the foot of the bed and a large anteater pushing from behind.  
  
"You say Mary's brother is your teacher?" Natalie asked, looking up from her husband to face the sisters, her mind slowly arranging the facts they knew about Mary. "But the Mill fire was in 1869 so how...."  
  
"He's a ghost. The Wizarding Education Authority loves ghosts."  
Breanna grinned. "If someone really wants to stick around at their job after they die then they don't have to find a replacement, you see. And they don't have to pay them either."  
  
"And Professor Jensen just couldn't leave Mary here. He's tried for years to find her. That's how he found out about what the bell can do." Aubrey added, her brow furrowing again as she tried to recall exactly what had been mentioned about the bell. The talk about an earthquake was really confusing her.  
  
'Snout Boy says it's a death bell.' Peter said silently. At least there was someone besides Mary here who seemed to be able to hear him now.  
  
"Death Bell's sort of right but it's more complicated than that,"  
Aubrey said slowly as they entered the elevator and struggled to fit together enough to get the door closed. Mona scrambled onto Antubis's back and pulled Mary up beside her to finally allow the door to slowly slide shut.  
  
"The problem is the bell was never really out in public use like a lot of other artifacts. Professor Jensen knows the most but there's a lot that's pretty much lost." Breanna added, glancing a bit nervously at the elevator doors as they slowly moved downwards. This many people and animals had to violate some sort of safety code.  
  
"You said artifact." Sally reached out, lifting the bell around Mary's neck slightly so she could get a better look. It seemed like an ordinary bell at first but then a tingle begin running up her fingers as she touched it. She looked closer and slowly details started to become clearer, small markings on the bell almost too tiny and worn for the eye to see, like some sort of ancient writing. "Mary, where did you get this?"  
she asked the little girl in astonishment.  
  
"It was my grandmother's. She said never to take it off and I would be safe." Mary whispered, tears starting to form once more at the thought of her family.  
  
"Mary's grandmother was from a magical family." Aubrey said as she reached out and gently touched the little girl. "She knew what she was doing when she gave you that bell. It's got some sort of protective ability."  
  
"She said I was special." Mary whispered. Did her grandmother have magic? Mary had never seen any, well except the magic created by love.  
  
"Your grandmother was born to a magical family but she didn't have magic herself." Aubrey continued with a shake of her head. "Well, not the kind of magic that wizarding people can generally measure. Professor Jensen thinks she had some sort of talent but it was just so different no one realized it. The bell had been in her family since.... When did Professor Jensen say, Bree? He mentioned it when we were talking about History of Magic but...."  
  
"Around 500 when the Sidhe retreated from most of Ireland." Bree continued with what her sister was saying. "Professor Jensen researched the bell back in 1890 but it was really hard to find out anything since the bell had stayed in a single family for so long."  
  
"And goodness knows they weren't cooperative. They were mad that Mary's grandmother got the bell even though she wasn't magical instead of their side of the family." Aubrey frowned as she spoke. People could just be so stupid sometimes.  
  
Your grandmother's father gave her the bell to wear because she was non-magical." Aubrey continued as she turned to face Mary. "He thought it would protect her and it did. A dark wizard, no one ever knew who,  
attacked the family one night when your grandmother was six or seven and burnt the house to the ground. The only survivors were an older daughter who was married and away from home and your grandmother. She walked through the fire and the flames didn't touch her."  
  
"Was that why she gave me the bell?" Mary asked slowly. "Did she know what was going to happen at the mill?"  
  
"No one really knows exactly what she could do to say if she knew about the mill fire or not." Bree looked at the elevator light as she spoke. Was it just her or did it seem like this thing was going slower than normal? "The family had always guarded the bells though and she did know that you were going to have some sort of magical talent."  
  
'Wait a minute.' Peter's hand shot out snagging Bree's hand.  
'Bells. You said bells. There's more than one bell like Mary's?'  
  
"There are two of them." Aubrey said with a nod, then adding for the others who didn't seem to hear Peter. "There are two bells. The second bell was stolen around 1780. No one knows what happened to it."  
  
'I think we do.' Peter turned to face Mary, who was staring at him with a frightened expression. 'Mary, Paul says you aren't the only one with a bell. Does he have the second bell?'  
  
"I don't know." Mary whispered. She had been slightly enjoying hearing about her family and the past that had been unknown to her until now but the mention of Paul's name caused a cold wave of fear to wash over her. "There's something, in the Pain Room, but I don't know what."  
  
Aubrey and Breanna looked at each other with sudden worry. They had some vague ideas about the powers of one bell alone but if both of them were there, with one in the hands of dark forces....  
  
"We definitely need Professor Jensen..." Aubrey started to say just as a jolt suddenly shook the elevator sending everyone tumbling forward as Peter's bed smacked against the doors.  
  
"I didn't do it!" Mary cried frantically, clinging to Mona with one hand and Antubis's fur with the other. Tears of fright started to run down her cheeks.  
  
"We know you didn't," Bree murmured as the lights flickered before finally stabilizing as the shaking stopped. "Ummmm, I think we better take the stairs."  
  
"Not much chance of that." Hook told them as he jabbed at the button to open the door. "Looks like the door's jammed."  
  
"That's what wands are for." Aubrey waved her wand at the closed doors, murmuring a word as she did so and a moment later they slid open.  
The lights in the hallway they were entering were low, low enough that the group could barely see as they advanced into the hallway, dodging as best they could around milling staff members as Hook took the lead this time,  
steering them towards the stairs. If they were going to stop what was going on, it didn't seem like they had much time. 


	10. chapter 10

"Lona?" Elmer frantically called her name again, one hand moving to check her pulse once more. She was paler now, barely a hint of breathing.  
Where was Hook? Elmer looked from Lona to the doorway, frantically trying to decide what to do, wait for Hook or forget about trying to keep this quiet and just carry Lona upstairs. "Lona?" He felt himself starting to hyperventilate slightly. She was going to die. She was going to die right there in front of him and....  
  
Just then he heard a weak moan, snapping him out of his panic temporarily. "Lona?" he called leaning over her and sighing with relief when he saw her eyelids start to twitch.  
  
"Elmer?" Lona murmured as she slowly forced her eyelids open a bit. Before she could say anymore, another pain seized her stomach and she screamed, grabbing at his hand and sinking her nails into the flesh.  
  
"Okay." Elmer frantically grabbed the edge of the bed, fighting to avoid screaming himself until Lona finally released his hand a minute later. "Waiting here for Hook, bad idea. Let's get you upstairs. My dad...." How in the world was he going to explain this to his father?  
"Well, he can't kill us. I don't think. He had to take some sort of oath not to do that, right?"  
  
"No, Elmer...." Lona started to say as he wrapped his arms around her and started to lift her, only to almost fall on top of her as another pain wracked her body and she grabbed his shirt collar, choking him.  
  
"Okay. Okay. Going upstairs, bad idea. I'll just page Hook again. Or my dad. Or anyone competent. Just don't move, okay?" Elmer said as he backed towards the phone and grabbed it, punching in Otto's number.  
  
"Otto, where is Hook?" Elmer demanded as he tried to keep one eye on Lona and one on the door as he spoke.  
  
"He isn't answering his...." Otto started to say, his eyes widening slightly as he heard a noise on the other end of the line. "Is that someone screaming?"  
  
"Otto, just page Hook again. Or my dad. Or the first competent doctor you see and get them down here now!" Lona's eyes were starting to slip closed again. Elmer dropped the phone back onto the cradle and hurried to her side.  
  
"Lona?" He risked shaking her shoulder this time, gently at first and then more firmly when she didn't respond. Suddenly her nails sunk once more into the flesh of his hand as she opened her eyes, another scream filling the air.  
  
"It's okay, it's okay." He murmured, in a tone he hoped was reassuring although he was slightly afraid that it wasn't. Med school classes, he was sure that some med school class had covered something like this but at the moment he couldn't even recall where he had gone to med school. "Ummm, Lona, what happened?" He wanted to ask her about the baby and who the father was but a sudden flash of insight told him not to risk it.  
  
"I don't know," Lona whispered, the pain momentarily fading and letting her speak. She was cold, so cold, and her body felt strange,  
almost as if she were floating not attached to it. "I woke up this morning and...." She weakly gestured towards her stomach as another pain hit and she moaned. There was no energy to scream now.  
  
Elmer looked at her with wide eyes, even more panic filled as it suddenly occured to him what might be going on. Labor? "Hook, get down here fast and I swear I'll steal anything you want." Elmer murmured under his breath as he stroked Lona's face, trying to comfort her.  
  
She started to shake as the pain eased. "I don't know how this happened." Her eyes slipped shut for a moment before she forced them open again, a slightly glazed look in them now. "Elmer, there hasn't been anyone else for over a year and...." Pain again, forcing her to moan and clutch at his hand.  
  
"There... there's something wrong." she whispered as the pain slowly faded a minute later. Spots of blackness were swimming at the edges of her vision. "It isn't supposed... There's something wrong."  
  
"Lona...." Elmer frantically looked towards the door before starting to speak. If.... He couldn't loose her! Then the baby.... He didn't want anything to happen to the baby either but.... He had known he was going to be a father for sure for only a few minutes but he had had a crush on Lona for what felt like forever. He started to speak again but suddenly the ground trembled beneath his feet and he felt himself falling onto the bed as a series of crashes sounded from the hall and the shaking grew even louder as if the entire hospital was collapsing. 


	11. chapter 11

The basement corridors seemed pretty much deserted as a young girl of maybe fourteen made her way slowly down the hallway. The pushed a strand of light brown hair and turned to the figure following her.  
"Professor, is this the part of the hospital that you wanted me to check?"  
  
"Yes. There are more portions of the first Kingdom Hospital in this section than in any other part of the hospital." The man reached out and laid a hand against the wall, suddenly lost in thought. He was tall,  
his light brown hair only slightly edged with grey around the temples and he could have been anywhere from his thirties to his early fifties. His wore a long black robe but that wasn't the first strange thing that an observer would note about him. Although at first glance he seemed like any other person, on taking a closer look, you could see through him and his skin gave off a slight glow.  
  
He turned from the wall to face the girl once more. "Lucy and I always had problems in this section of the old hospital," He said with a distant look in his eyes. "We got separated once and Lucy saw something,  
she would never tell me what...."  
  
"Professor Jensen, you know if Professor Banes hears you calling her Lucy she's going to kill you, right?" the girl said with a chuckle.  
"So, what do you want me to do?"  
  
"Honestly, I'm not really sure." Michael turned to stare at the corridor for a moment before turning to his student, who was waiting for some sort of guidance. "Just close your eyes and see if you feel anything unusual, Susan."  
  
"Could I get a better definition of unusual, please?" Susan asked nervously.  
  
"Just a magical presence, dear. Luckily Johnny very seldom finds time to do his job so the basement should be magic free at the moment."  
Michael noticed the nervous expression on the girl's face and leaned towards her with a smile. "Susan, please don't worry about this. If you can't do it, I'm not going to be upset with you. After all, I've been looking for Mary for over a hundred years and I've never found her."  
Michael closed his eyes for a moment as he spoke his sister's name,  
struggling to keep his emotions under control as he spoke to Susan. He had promised his mother to find his sister, to save her and....  
  
"Professor, do you want me to try it now?" Susan asked hesitantly,  
closing her eyes and slowly probing the hallway for anything out of the ordinary when Michael nodded. Nothing. She slowly started to walk down the hallway, keeping her eyes closed as she went. She bit her lip as she walked, still not feeling a thing. This just wasn't working. Maybe Professor Jensen was wrong about her, maybe all of the people who said that because she didn't have any real magic.... Suddenly her eyes shot open as she felt a flicker of something.  
  
"There's something here," Susan started down the hallway with her eyes open now that she had picked up the trail. The first faint ripples grew stronger and her eyes widened. "Professor, this feels like something dark. Should I...."  
  
"Keep going if you can, Susan. This hospital has always been very strange." Michael frowned as he followed the girl. "Just be careful.  
Very bad things happened here and...."  
  
"Here. It's in here." Susan rushed down the hall now, having to hurry or the waves of dark energy would have brought her to her knees. She pressed her hands against the door in front of her and her brow furrowed in puzzlement. She turned and called back to her teacher. "It's here but it's not here. Professor, I don't know what this is. It's like there's something going on... between?"  
  
Michael slowed for a moment, puzzling over what Susan was feeling.  
Suddenly the ground beneath their feet begin to shake and plaster started to rain down from the ceiling.  
  
"Professor!" Susan screamed as she forced herself into the doorway and ducked down low. The evil she was sensing surrounded her now and she flung her hands around her head to try to protect herself as debris continued to fall.  
  
"Susan?" The girl opened her eyes what felt like an eternity later when she heard Michael calling her name.  
  
"Professor?" Her eyes widened as she hurried back down the hall towards where she had last seen him. The part of the hallway near the door she had crouched in seemed basically intact but back the way they had came,  
part of the ceiling had caved in, blocking the hallway completely.  
"Professor, where are you?"  
  
"I seem to be on the other side of what I'm hoping is not a sign that Jesse has been doing a little cutting on building maintence again."  
Michael said as he started through the debris. "I'll be right there. Are you alright?"  
  
As he stepped through the debris, Michael expected to find a panicked student on the other side. Instead, he found himself in a grey corridor, strangely familiar to him. Screams came from a doorway just ahead of him and he slowly headed towards it. "Mary?" He whispered.  
  
"Professor, where are you?!" Suddenly he heard Susan's voice and he forced himself to back up, stepping out of the rubble back to where he had started from. He wanted nothing more but to explore that strange place. the first Kingdom Hospital? Could that really be the first Kingdom? First he needed to see to the safety of the student in his charge though.  
  
"Susan, I think I might have found that between place you were sensing." Michael said, putting a slight chuckle into his voice in an attempt to reassure the girl. "Unfortunately, it seems to be preventing me from going through the debris. I need you to go upstairs and get some help."  
  
"Okay," Susan said slowly. "Are you sure you're okay?"  
  
"I'm fine, dear." Just then, Michael heard a faint shouting from somewhere down the corridor. He shook his head. "I'm afraid I'm not alone though. It sounds like some other people are trapped on this side as well."  
  
"Okay. I'll go get someone and I'll be back as fast as I can."  
Susan told him.  
  
"Good. Just don't get Dr, James, dear. He mixed up a summoning charm and a severing charm once. Flakey was never a well man after that.  
I would hate to see what he would do if he tried to banish this rubble."  
  
"I'll call the headmistress. She'll know what to do." Susan started to walk away but then turned with a slight frown. "Be careful,  
Professor. What I was sensing before is on your side of the hall now." 


	12. chapter 12

"Lona?" Elmer whispered as he slowly opened his eyes as the shaking stopped. They weren't dead. Well, he didn't think they were dead.  
He was almost lying across her and he quickly pulled away, a sudden worry that he might have injured her somehow filling his head as he reached out and gently shook her shoulder. "Lona?"  
  
The lights in the lab were low, almost too low to see by. He anxiously peered down at her face as he fumbled for her pulse. Was she even breathing? He couldn't see if she was breathing and the lower part of the bed was wet. What had.... He hurt her or something, he had to have hurt her. He killed her and the... He felt himself starting to hyperventilate and this time he didn't even try to get control. If he had hurt Lona... Bad enough that he had gotten her pregnant somehow and that seemed to be making her sick. Then he did something and.... Why was he surprised that she hadn't ever really cared for him with the stupid, stupid things that he did. He felt tears stinging his eyes as he dropped down onto the bed and gathered Lona into his arms, holding her and rocking her.  
  
"Elmer?" Suddenly he heard a faint whisper snapping him out of his shattered state.  
  
"Lona?" He thought he should probably lay her back down and try to check her for injury or something but he didn't. He pulled her closer to him, not caring at that point if it angered her or not. He had been so sure that she was gone and....  
  
"Elmer, what happened?" Lona whispered. Her body felt almost numb, the pains almost constantly wrapping around her stomach only dimly felt. And she was cold, so cold. She let go, burrowing into Elmer's embrace as best she could. She... Maybe she might have been a bit harsh with him in the past. Okay, he definitely was a child to a very large extent but....  
  
"I think there was another earthquake," Elmer said quietly as he rubbed her arms, trying to get her a bit warmer. She was so cold. That couldn't be good. "Listen, I'm going to call Otto again and see what's going on, okay?"  
  
Lona slowly nodded, not really sure what she could say in response at the moment as Elmer moved across the room towards the phone. As he moved away from her, it was almost as if he was fading away. The pain washed over her again and she moaned with it. This... Something was wrong and she knew it. She felt so weak, so unnaturally weak and it was getting worse as if all of the energy was being drained out of her. A hand drifted down to her stomach, relieved slightly when she felt a faint movement inside. At least... She had only known about this baby for hours and her feelings were seriously conflicted but no matter what, she didn't want the child to die.  
  
Neither Elmer or Lona noticed as Paul stepped through the wall of the sleep lab. He glanced over at Elmer with a contemptuous look as he slowly walked over to Lona. "See if you can help that kid after this," he murmured as he reached out both hands, placing them on either side of Lona's stomach and starting to squeeze.  
  
"Lona..." The phone slipped out of Elmer's hands as he looked out into the hall. He couldn't see well at all but from the ceiling, it looked like part of the corridor might have caved in at some point. Probably what had knocked out the phone lines too. How was he going to tell Lona that they were trapped, though? She needed help and.... 'Please, Hook, get down here somehow.' Elmer thought as he started back to Lona's bedside only to stop in shock when he saw the teenage boy standing over Lona doing something, hurting her.  
  
"Leave her alone!" Elmer cried as he ran forward to try to push Paul away only to go right through him and crashing into the wall. He struggled to pull himself to his feet, his head ringing.  
  
"Hope you didn't want the kid," Paul said, his fangs flashing as his fingers dug into Lona's stomach. "and I wouldn't place good odds on her either. But she never did give you a chance, now did she? If you hadn't knocked...."  
  
Elmer drug himself up, struggling to ignore the boy's taunts.  
Okay, Lona hadn't given him the time of day and called him a child and.  
He shook his head, lunging towards Paul again with the same results.  
  
"You are stupid, aren't you? You know that she thought you were a...."  
  
"I don't care! Leave her alone!" Elmer yelled as he pulled himself up again, this time grabbing for Lona. If this boy was going to hurt her and their baby he was going to have to go through him first! 


	13. chapter 13

"Where do they put the stairs in this place?" Susan murmured as she hurried down the corridor glancing back anxiously over her shoulder as she walked. Although she knew that Professor Jensen was more than able to take care of himself, the dark thing that she had sensed was powerful. She bit her lip nervously. The feeling of the dark energy was getting stronger now, like a wave washing down the hallway towards her. With a sigh of relief she spotted the door to the stairs and started towards it.  
  
Suddenly the evil force was around her and she fell to her knees,  
ducking her head down and rolling as something swished right where her head would have been. She pulled herself to her feet as she rolled, reaching for the door and jerking it open. As she started up the stairs, she risked a glance behind her and saw a man dressed in the outfit of a surgeon wielding what looked like an ice pick.  
  
Susan slammed the door just as the ice pick came towards her head and ran as fast as she could. She could hear footsteps somewhere on the stairs but she couldn't tell if they were above her or below her. Even though she really wanted to put more distance between that nut with the ice pick and herself, she finally forced herself to stop running when she reached the main floor. She had to get someone down there to rescue Professor Jensen. That lunatic could find him or worse the other people who were trapped as well.  
  
"Dr. James!" She called as she came bursting out of the stairwell and caught sight of the clueless head of the hospital standing by Otto's desk.  
  
"Ummmm..." Dr. James stared at the girl that had just appeared,  
trying to put a name to the face. After awhile, all of the kids from his aunt's school kind of ran together. "Something with an S...." He muttered. "Oh, Susan! Yes, here, have a Morning Air button. Nothing like a fresh breath of Morning Air."  
  
Susan had to fight against rolling her eyes. How in the world Dr.  
James ended up related to the headmistress, she would never know. She impatiently batted his hand away. "There's been an earthquake! Professor Jensen's trapped in the basement with some muggles! And there's a lunatic doctor down there with an ice pick!" Oh, great. He was looking at her as if he hadn't understood a word she said. "Call your aunt!"  
  
"Oh, there's no need to do that." Dr. James said, looking around anxiously to make sure that no one had heard what Susan was saying about earthquakes and lunatic doctors roaming free in the hospital. "We have these little tremors all the time and I'm sure that the doctor that you saw was just Dr. Stegman."  
  
Before Susan could reply that she certainly knew the insane doctors in this hospital and the one she had saw wasn't Stegman, there was a loud scream and the doors to the ER flew open as Brenda came running in.  
She darted over to James and grabbed at his arm, panting for breath as she started to speak. "You.... Mona Klingerman.... She.... Steg,  
Steg's an ass!! Steg's an ass!"  
  
Susan rolled her eyes as she watched the spectacle, Brenda running around the lobby screaming about Stegman being an ass now, oblivious to Dr.  
James' attempts to quiet her. Suddenly she heard what she could swear was hooves clopping along. She turned as the stairwell door opened once more and an ass entered, dragging a bed that was floating a couple of inches off the floor and followed by a fairly large procession of people. Susan sighed when she recognized her younger classmates. They would surely be more help than Dr. James.  
  
"Aubrey, Breanna!" Susan waved as she hurried towards her friends.  
  
"Susan, where's Professor Jensen?" Aubrey glanced around anxiously for their teacher. "We found...."  
  
"Mary?" Susan whispered as she spotted the little girl standing next to Mona. She leaned down, studying Mary in disbelief for a moment before suddenly hugging her tight. They found her, they really found her.  
When Professor Jensen saw.... "Oh my gosh! Professor Jensen!" Susan glanced up from Mary at the other girls with a sudden panic. "He's in the basement! We were down there checking things out and there was an earthquake! Part of the ceiling caved in and he's trapped on the other side! And there's something down there, something evil. There was this doctor and he had an ice pick and...."  
  
"Dr. Gottreich and Paul." Mary said, her eyes widening with fear at the news that her brother was trapped with her two enemies. "We have to hurry. There isn't much time."  
  
"And we still need Christa, Abel and Elmer," Hook added and then looked down when Mona tugged on his sleeve. "Mona?"  
  
The girl pointed towards the séance drawing on the bed, tapping the picture of Elmer and gesturing towards the stairs, rolling her eyes when the grownup didn't seem to understand her. She motioned anxiously for Mary to help her.  
  
"I think she's saying that Elmer's downstairs." Mary after studying her friend's gestures for a moment.  
  
"I hope in the part with Professor Jensen and not with that nutty doctor," Susan murmured. "We better hurry though. There's an off chance that Dr. James might have listened for a change and actually intends to call the head mistress but...."  
  
"And I see Christa and Abel," Sally said with a smile. "Go on.  
We'll catch up to you in a minute." 


	14. chapter 14

Michael headed down the hallway towards the voices that he had heard. He wasn't sure what he could do to help any trapped muggles,  
especially in the light of whatever was going on between the walls of the hospital but he would certainly do whatever he could. At least they probably wouldn't freak out when they saw him with all of the strange things that tended to happen in that hospital.  
  
Just then Michael heard a shout. He started running down the corridor, reaching out and waving his hand, causing the door to fly open as he entered. A fixed, angry expression settled on his face when he caught sight of the teenage boy looming over two figures, the man struggling to free the woman from the boy's grasp.  
  
Michael stalked across the room and grabbed Paul's shirt collar,  
spinning him around and causing him to let go of Lona. Elmer caught her before she could hit the floor and gathered her into his arms. He looked over at the door but he didn't see any way he could reach it safely.  
  
"Who are..." Paul started to say with a snarl only to have his words silenced as a fist slammed into his face, sending him reeling across the room.  
  
"You know, that was slightly more satisfying that handing out detentions." Michael said with a chuckle as he hurried over to where Elmer was kneeling on the floor, Lona in his arms.  
  
"You're all dead!" Paul yelled as he steadied himself, a ball of energy shooting out of his hand and towards the three. Elmer's eyes widdened and he leaned over Lona, covering as much of her with his body as he could. It was likely a futile gesture, he knew, but....  
  
"Young man, I have taught teenagers for over a hundred years now,"  
Michael said as he moved in front of Lona and Elmer, waving his hand and creating a shield just before the blast could touch them. He staggered slightly from the impact but forced himself to stand firm. This boy was powerful, almost unnaturally powerful. But he didn't need to know that.  
"Nothing you can do would come as the least surprise. I've seen it all and countered it all!"  
  
He let the shield drop, hoping that the muggles would have the sense to stay where they were as he advanced towards Paul, firing his own blast of energy, not a narrow beam like Paul's but wider.  
  
Paul fell back once more with the impact of the blast. He didn't pull himself back up as quickly this time, taking the opportunity to survey his opponent. The blast had been weaker than the ones he had generated but unlike his, Michael's had found it's target. He was sure he could take the old man down but... He started to fade out through the wall. Why bother.  
They would be dead soon anyway and he had finished off the woman.  
  
"That one could certainly use some discipline." Michael forced himself to chuckle as he moved back to Lona and Elmer, kneeling down beside them. That boy might have ran but if he returned.... There was something about the power that he had displayed, something unnatural. "Son, what happened?"  
  
Elmer looked up at Michael, despair in his eyes. He dimly noticed that he could almost see through the man but at the moment he didn't care.  
He pressed his fingers against Lona's neck once more, desperately hoping that he wouldn't find confirmed what he already knew. "She... She's dead." He whispered. "He killed her." 


	15. chapter 15

Elmer laid Lona down on the ground. She couldn't be dead. She just couldn't be! His mind slipped into automatic pilot to get past the almost debilitating fear the sight of Lona like that was instilling. He leaned over her and gently blew into her mouth. "Please. please," he whispered as he started down at her for a moment hoping for some sort of change before forcing another breath into her lungs. Deep down, he knew that it couldn't possibly work but didn't he have to try something? He started to press his lips against hers once more but then he stopped,  
gathering Lona into his arms and gently rocking her as the reality of the situation started to sink in. Rationally, he knew that he should keep trying, shouldn't give up on bringing her back, but at the same time, he knew that the odds of success with them trapped down here without access to the technology and medicines that would be needed to save her.... He looked around the room, hoping against hope to see something, anything, that might make a difference before staring down once more into her pale face for a moment, his eyes closing in despair. It was him, it had to be him. First his brother and then his mother and now Lona and their baby. A hand moved down to her stomach and rested on it, feeling the weakening movements of the baby within. It had never even had a chance.  
  
"I'm sorry, I'm so sorry," he whispered to the baby, to Lona, to the world in general. Suddenly, Elmer felt an intense cold feeling on his face, causing his eyes to snap open once more.  
  
Michael pulled his hand back, satisfied that he had successful grabbed Elmer's attention. He glanced worriedly down at Lona's limp body,  
his eyes widening slightly at the swell of her stomach. "This would be the perfect time for my colleagues to make a rescue attempt," he murmured under his breath before focusing on Elmer. "Check her again. Do you know exactly what that boy did to her?" Okay, he wasn't a healer but that boy was radiating dark power and if there was one thing he knew it was the dark. This was fixable. It was just a matter of being able to do it quickly enough.  
  
Elmer eased Lona onto the floor once more and pressed his fingers against her throat, hoping to find that he had made a mistake. She was so cold. Maybe he just missed.... Nothing, there was nothing, though. He shook his head sadly as he looked up at Michael. "It's too late." He whispered.  
  
"No, it isn't but I need to know exactly what that boy did."  
Michael extended a hand, careful not to touch Lona but probing as best he could, trying to sense what could be the cause of the problem. He glanced up at Elmer with an impatient look. "Young man, quickly please. I might be able to fix this if you'll tell me what happened."  
  
"I don't...." Elmer looked at him in confusion for a moment before somehow grabbing on to the last vestiges of calm that he could find. If this man, whoever he was, thought that there was something that he could do to save Lona and the baby.... He forced himself to focus on exactly what he had seen when he had turned and found that boy there, standing over Lona and hurting her. "He was touching her, kind of squeezing like he was trying to crush the baby or something." He shook his head. He was really as useless as Lona normally found him. He should have been able to have protected her, to have prevented this from happening at all.  
  
Michael's hands moved to Lona's stomach, gently, slowly probing.  
He was aware of the time rapidly passing but if he didn't know exactly what the problem he was dealing with was before he took action he could compound the situation. His eyes widened slightly as his probe finally detected something. "There was something wrong before, wasn't there?"  
  
Elmer nodded as he looked down at Lona once more. He hesitated for a moment before speaking. The problem sounded crazy, even to him and he had seen it with his own eyes. "It's the baby, I think." Elmer said slowly trying to find the words to explain what had gone wrong. "Last night.... Well, Lona was doing an experiment with me down here and...."  
He hesitated for a moment before continuing, embarrassed but willing to reveal anything if it would save her. "I was under the scanner and somehow we ended up in this morgue. Only it wasn't the hospital morgue, it was some other morgue, one that really needed a cleaning service or something.  
We... Well, things kind of.... We were trying to get home and.... Lona woke up like this this morning and she just kept getting sicker and sicker." Elmer looked up at Michael, panic on his face now. It had been so long, too long. "Listen, if there's something that you can do to help her, don't you think you should do it, now?" If Lona could be brought back somehow, would she even be okay at this point? And the baby....  
  
"Patience." Michael murmured, aware of the time yet at the same time knowing the need for care as well. He finally moved his hands away,  
thinking for a moment before speaking. "Blankets. Get blankets. Now."  
  
Elmer pulled himself to his feet and hurried over to the closest bed, pulling the blanket on it free and bringing it back. Somehow having something to focus on seemed to be helping him slightly. He moved between the other beds, quickly gathering the rest of the blankets as well. If he could just see that guy, whoever he was, actually taking some sort of action now.  
  
Michael was still studying Lona's pale face when Elmer brought the rest of the blankets back. He could undo the damage the boy had done but there was still the underlying problem of.... He glanced up at Elmer,  
decision now apparent on his face. The original problem could be dealt with after the immediate problem was fixed.  
  
"Be ready to get those blankets over her," he murmured as he placed a hand over Lona's chest, gently probing for a moment before suddenly plunging his hand into her body and rapidly pulling it out once more.  
  
"What did you do?" Elmer shouted as Lona's body suddenly twitched and she let out a moan of unbelievable pain. Wait a minute, moaning? She was.... He suddenly felt himself starting to smile. Moaning was a good thing! If she was moaning then she was.... He started to reach out to touch her face, to reassure himself.  
  
"The blankets, young man," Michael said, motioning for Elmer to cover Lona quickly as his hands moved once more to hover over her stomach,  
slowly working to correct the damage that had been done by Paul's attack.  
They were far from out of the woods. 


	16. chapter 16

Elmer stared down at Lona as Michael worked, relieved to see that she was breathing a bit better now and the pain that she had been in after the ghost had brought her back seemed to be easing. He glanced down at her stomach and then up at Michael, not even wanting to ask him about the baby.  
How... He didn't see how the baby had any chance of surviving with how sick Lona was and what the boy had done to her. Although he didn't want to speak it, he felt the words starting to slip out. "How..." He bit his lip forcing himself to stop. He shouldn't even think about the baby. I mean,  
he didn't know what Lona intended to do about the situation, if she would have wanted him involved, well more involved than he had to be to make the baby.  
  
I don't know," Michael murmured as he finished removing the last vestiges of the damage that Paul had done. The original problem though.  
There was very little that he could do to correct that.  
  
Elmer looked down at Lona again. He didn't want them to lose the baby but if he might lose her.... Okay, so normally Lona wouldn't give him the time of day but wasn't there always hope? The baby though.  
"Isn't there something that you can do?" Lona was starting to stir slightly but there wasn't any sign that she was going to wake up any time soon.  
  
"Not without a healer." Michael said as he turned towards the door. He thought he had heard something. "Susan?"  
  
"Professor, are you okay?" Susan called as she stood anxiously in front of the pile of rubble. Okay, they made it down here safely but now how were they going to get through that? There was no way that Aubrey and Breanna could banish all of it.  
  
"As all right as we can be. Tell me help is on the way!" he called back to her.  
  
"Well, I told Dr. James about the cave in and there might be an off chance that he'll call the headmistress to organize a rescue." Susan said,  
the tone in her voice conveying exactly how likely she thought that was.  
She looked over at Dr. Hook who was examining the rubble, tugging experimentally at various parts of it. "We'll figure out something though!"  
  
Peter was also watching Hook trying to figure out how to clear a path for them. 'Hey," he said silently as he glanced over at Mary. Snout boy can go through walls, right? Could he...."  
  
"I don't know," Mary said as she motioned to Antubis to come over.  
Her brother was so close. A moment later Hook was brushed aside by a large, fluffy tail as the giant anteater lumbered over to the pile with the two girls holding onto his fur and stepped right through.  
  
"Michael?" Mary called softly as they stepped into the hallway beyond the rubble. She glanced nervously around, expecting Paul or Gottreich to appear at any moment. Mona tugged at her arm, causing her to jump slightly before realizing who it was. The other girl pointed at the pile and then motioned towards Antubis.  
  
"You better go and get the others," Mary said as she scratched Antubis behind the ears for a moment before motioning towards the pile again. As he vanished through the debris, she took one more nervous look around before starting down the hallway with Mona following her.  
"Michael?"  
  
Michael looked up when he heard the voice calling his name. Not one of his students but.... He shook his head, not sure that he wasn't imaging what he thought he was hearing. It had been so long. "Mary?" he called softly and then louder. "Mary?"  
  
"Michael?" He looked up and suddenly there was a familiar face standing in the doorway, staring at him with a hopeful expression on her face. Was this her brother? Mary watched as the man in front of her stood, looking for any sign of the small boy that she remembered. She slowly eased into the room followed by Mona. "Michael? You grew up." she said softly.  
  
Michael nodded, drawing every bit of energy that he could muster,  
willing himself solid once more. For over a hundred years he had dreamed of this moment, of finally being able to hold his sister and a little thing like death was certainly not going to stand in his way. He reached out,  
tentively touching her and then scooping her into his arms. "Sister,  
welcome back." he whispered as he held her tight, his face almost buried in her hair. "Welcome home." 


	17. chapter 17

Mary let herself go almost limp in her brother's arms. Home. She wanted to be free of this place so badly, to go home. After so long would she be able to do it, to just leave with her brother after Gottreich.  
Just then she noticed Lona lying on the floor, Elmer kneeling beside her with a worried expression on his face.  
  
She squirmed slightly, signaling for her brother to put her down.  
"What happened?" Mary asked softly as she walked over and knelt down by Elmer, reaching out and touching Lona gently.  
  
Oh, great. Elmer glanced over at the child with a nervous expression. Trying to explain exactly what happened to the ghost had been embarrassing enough but now to have to offer the details to a little girl....  
  
"Did you do something naughty in the morgue again?" Mary said with a giggle as she caught sight of Elmer's embarrassed expression. Her hand moved lower to Lona's tummy, her eyes widening a bit when she felt the baby moving. "Oh, you really did something naughty, didn't you?"  
  
"Do we have to talk about naughty things? Please?" Elmer glanced over at the little girl and dropped his eyes to the floor and Lona's face once more. The sight of her pale face forced him to shove his embarrassment down and look up anxiously at Michael, Mary and was that Mona Klingerman? "They got in somehow. That means there's a way to get out of here, right? We need to get her to a doctor or something now!" Surely if they could get Lona out of here and get her some help this could be fixed.  
There had to be a way to fix it! Elmer gently touched Lona's stomach for a moment. He couldn't bring himself to say it, knowing how likely it was that.... Maybe if he didn't say it, it would hurt less when.... He didn't want to lose them though, to lose either Lona or the baby.  
  
"What's wrong with her?" Mary asked as she looked down at Lona once more.  
  
"There's a reason that pregnancy takes nine months." Michael said as he crossed the room to join his sister, his eyes narrowing as he caught sight of Mona. "Sit on the bed, dear. Where in the world are your shoes?"  
  
"It's making her sick?" Mary looked up at her brother as he lifted Mona onto one of the beds before joining them on the floor.  
  
Michael nodded, extending his hand and gently probing. Removing the damage caused by that boy had helped a bit, had given Lona an slight energy boost as a consequence, but already that was fading rapidly. If something weren't done and soon, neither Lona or the baby would survive.  
  
"Paul did something to her too, didn't he?" Mary asked as she glanced up at her brother.  
  
"Is Paul that rather badly disciplined boy?" Michael said and when Mary nodded he continued. "He tried to destroy the baby. I was able to correct that damage but there's very little that I can do for the more serious problem." He glanced towards the doorway for a moment before turning back to the situation at hand. If Jesse would just call his aunt.... There were healers at the school who could treat this if they could just get one of them there in time. He looked down at Lona once more, trying to keep his expression neutral. Time, she had very little of that left.  
  
Suddenly he looked up as Mary spoke. "Maybe I can do something to help?" she said hesitantly as she moved around Elmer, lifting Lona's head a little and easing her up so she her head rested pillowed in her lap. She bit her lip as she gently touched her face once more. She had helped Peter after Paul had hurt him but this.... If she didn't try though, she could tell from the way her brother was trying so hard not to look that Lona was going to die and her baby,,,, She turned her head slightly and glanced at Elmer out of the corner of her eye. He would be so sad if Lona died.  
  
Mary looked up as she felt someone take her hand to find Mona kneeling next to her. "Okay," Mary said quietly as she motioned for the other girl to put her free hand on Lona's tummy. She closed her eyes, not sure exactly what to do but determined to try anyway. They had to fix this. 


	18. chapter 18

Hook jumped back involuntarily as Antubis suddenly appeared in the debris, his head, shoulders and front paws sticking out while his rear end was still inside the almost solid pile of rubble.  
  
"Where are Mary and Mona?" Sally said as she joined the group in the corridor, Abel and Christa right behind her giggling at the sight of Antubis.  
  
'They went to find Mary's brother,' Antubis said as he lumbered fully out of the debris and back to the head of Peter's bed. 'Better hang on if you want to come.'  
  
"Hanging on's definitely good," Aubrey said with a grimace as she reached out and got a solid grip on Antubis's fur, what seemed to be the surest thing to actually go through the rubble safely. "Dr. James botched an intangibility spell once. It took two hours to get him out of the wall.  
I don't think we have two hours."  
  
"Dr James is a...." Christine started to say only to have to stop and suddenly grab hold of Hook and the edge of the bed as they suddenly moved forward, sliding through the rubble like they were moving through water. As they came out on the other side, she swayed and almost felt to the floor before steadying herself.  
  
"That was very interesting," Sally said as she looked back from the wall to Antubis. Never in her lengthy career as a psychic, not even after her encounters with Mary, had she imagined things like this. And the way those children talked about it, things like this were commonplace.  
"Dr. James is a warlock?" Hook said as they started down the hallway once more, heading for the sleep lab.  
  
"We prefer the term wizard." Bree said. "He isn't a very good one though. If you see him with a wand, I would suggest fleeing the area."  
Susan had been ignoring the talk, scanning the area as they walked for any sign of that insane doctor or other dangers. She could feel something, a heavy feeling, starting to build under her skin. "Professor,  
where are you?"  
  
"This way!" Michael called out as he turned from watching Mary and Mona for a moment to the door. Whatever his sister was doing, it did seem to be making a difference. Lona's color was starting to change from that deathly white to something resembling normal and it looked like she was starting to stir a bit. He glanced down at the swell of her stomach with a bit of a nervous look though. That situation was definitely something that would require assistance, he was afraid very soon. "Susan, you wouldn't by any chance have any of the doctors with you? Competent ones?"  
  
Susan glanced over at Christine and Hook for a moment. Competence.  
How was she supposed to know if.... "They look kind of competent. What's going on?"  
  
As Michael spoke, Lona felt herself drifting up from the cold, dark place she had found herself suddenly in. Warm, she finally was warm. Her eyelids fluttered for a moment before slowly opening. She looked up, a kind of bemused confusion at the sight of Mary holding her head pillowed him her lap. And was that Mona Klingerman? Dreaming, this had to be a.  
Suddenly, a pain seized her stomach, causing her to flinch and bite her lip to keep a scream from slipping out. Her hand reached out, grabbing Elmer's hand, her nails sinking into his flesh.  
  
"Lona?" Elmer was torn between elation that she was awake and okay and worry that she was suddenly in pain again.  
  
"I think the baby's coming now," Mary murmured as she gently stroked Lona's forehead until the pain seemed to easy slightly.  
  
Elmer looked from the girls to Michael with suddenly frightened eyes. Okay, he had an idea that Lona was in labor or something but to have someone confirm it. He shook his head. He wasn't ready for this, for suddenly becoming a father!  
  
"Elmer, if you lose it now, I swear that I will..." Lona glared at him before biting back another scream and digging her fingers into his hand. This... She hadn't wanted to believe it, hadn't even had a chance to get used to being pregnant and now this baby was definitely coming. Her eyes widened slightly as the pain eased and she was able to look around the room. The little girl, she was definitely there, and Mona Klingerman and a man, a man she could almost see through. And Elmer. This was not good,  
this was so far from good that.... The pain suddenly hit her again and this time she couldn't help letting out a scream.  
  
"It's okay. It's okay." Mary murmured as she stroked Lona's forehead, letting out a giggle when she saw the way Elmer was looking at her. Honestly, did he think this was supposed to frighten her or something?  
  
Just then they heard footsteps and glanced up as Hook appeared in the doorway. His eyes widened as he looked down at the group kneeling on the floor and noticed Lona's condition. A condition she certainly hadn't been in the day before.  
  
"Elmer, you bad, bad boy," Hook muttered as the rest of the group started to enter the room.  
  
'See they've been doing naughty things in the morgue again'  
Antubis said as he pushed Peter in. 'This might be a problem.' 


	19. chapter 19

"Did that anteater just say something about naughty things and a morgue?" Sally asked the group in general as they all entered the room.  
Antubis pushed Peter's bed against the far wall and moved over to Mary's side once more, looking down at Lona with what could be assumed was a curious expression for an anteater.  
  
'Well, we did see them down in the MRI room,' Peter thought as he looked at the group on the floor. Funny thing though, he didn't think the female doctor had been pregnant then and he was fairly sure he would have noticed that.  
  
"Do we have to talk about this? Please?" Elmer muttered. Oh,  
great. A large anteater knew about what had happened in the morgue and.  
Wait a minute, how did that anteater know? He could have sworn that there hadn't been an anteater there when they were....  
  
'I know lots of things,' Antubis said with a slight chuckle.  
'Like I know all about that he....'  
  
"Could we talk about something else, please?" Elmer said desperately just as Lona gave another muffled scream and clawed at his hand once more. His eyes widened as he looked down at her. He still couldn't remember much of his med school classes on this but he didn't think things should be happening that quickly. Suddenly a wave of fear washed over him.  
Whatever the little girl had done had seemed to help Lona but what if there was something going on, something that she couldn't fix? What if.  
As the pain eased, Elmer looked up at the group, worry momentarily replaced by puzzlement as he took in everyone. Hook and Dr. Draper weren't too surprising since Hook was always down here but what was Mrs. Druse doing here and another patient and.... He wasn't even going to think about that anteater.  
  
"Elmer, what in the world did you do?" Hook muttered under his breath as he and Christine knelt down by Lona just as another pain hit.  
"Wasn't that thing with the he...."  
  
"Let's not talk about that, okay?" Was everyone here just to bring up every single slightly naughty thing he had ever done or what? "What are all of you doing down here anyway?"  
  
"We're here to have a seance," Sally said as she moved around the room as best she could arranging things. She wished there had been time to bring her special light down from the Sunshine Ward but she would just have to make do.  
  
"A seance." Elmer said slowly. They were going to have a seance.  
One look at Lona's face, pain marring her brow as she struggled through another spasm convinced him he didn't even want to know the whys and whats of anything they were planning. "Listen, you just go ahead and have your seance. Do whatever you like. Just before you do, could one of you give me a hand in getting Lona upstairs? Please?"  
  
"I don't think we have time," Mary said quietly as she looked up.  
She could feel disaster looming in the air.  
  
"It's the second bell, Professor." Aubrey said. "The second bell is here and if we don't do something, it seems like it's going to trigger a giant earthquake."  
  
"The second bell?" Michael whispered. He had heard about the second bell when researching his family's history, of course, but after so long he had held no hope that it could be recovered. "Now what did you say is going to happen?" He knew virtually nothing about what the bells could do together except that their powers could be immense.  
  
"It's going to cause an earthquake. If we don't stop it, hundreds will die." Mary said softly.  
  
Michael turned to Antubis, really noticing the large creature for the first time. "Can the bells do that together?" he asked.  
  
'Hey, I'm just the Guardian.' Antubis said as he sniffed of Michael. 'I do know in the wrong hands, though, what can happen would be disasterous.'  
  
"Ummm, I hate to interrupt and all," Elmer said as he broke in.  
He glanced down at Lona worriedly before continuing to speak. If an earthquake was about to hit, somehow, it didn't seem like a good idea to be in the hospital basement! And even more pressing was the matter of Lona and the baby. He really, really didn't want his firstborn child born down here! "I kind of need to get her upstairs, though."  
  
"But you can't go." Mary said as she looked up at Elmer. "You have to stay and help us. You're one of the special dreamers." 


	20. chapter 20

Special dreamers? Elmer looked at Mary in confusion. What in the world was she talking about? Before he could think about it, though,  
Lona's fingers dug into his hand once more and he was forced to focus his attention on her. The little girl was still stroking her forehead and it did seem to somehow be easing the pain slightly but things were happening way too fast and too strongly.  
  
"Listen, I would love to help you with this séance, really, I would," Elmer said as he looked up at them for a moment before turning his attention to Lona again. The pain had eased and her eyes were closed as Mary stroked her forehead, easing away the tension once more. "But I really, really need to get her upstairs now, so if you could just tell me how you got in..."  
  
"You can't go," Mary said again, a hint of desperation in her voice as she looked up at Elmer. "You're one of the special dreamers. We need all of the special dreamers to stop the earthquake and save everyone."  
  
"Special dreamers?" Lona murmured as her eyes opened, taking in the rather assorted group assembled in her lab. The pain had left her totally drained of all energy but she could slowly feel her strength returning under the little girl's touch. Just then she spotted Christa and Abel and things fell into place. "Special dreamers. The Sandman positive subjects." She shook her head as she realized what the little girl was talking about, only to suddenly have her expression turn to confusion a moment later. How did that child know about the Samdman idea? She certainly didn't recall any small children wandering into the lab and certainly no large anteaters.  
  
"Sandman?" Elmer said as he looked at Lona in puzzlement. He had heard that term before but he couldn't quite place it.  
  
"The dream experiments, Elmer," Lona murmured. "You, Christa and Abel tested positive for..." Her words were suddenly cut off as another pain hit, her body feeling as it was suddenly being cut in two by the force.  
  
"Oh, my...." Elmer closed his eyes for a moment as what Lona was trying to tell him sank in. They needed him to.... His eyes shot open,  
going automatically down to Lona's stomach as a few implications suddenly hit him. The last two times he had taken part in Lona's sleep experiments,  
he had ended up somehow dragging her along for the ride. Oh, no. No, this wasn't good. Of all of the places that he didn't want his firstborn child born, the morgue definitely topped the list! And Lona, in her condition if she ended up drug along, who knows what damage it could do to her? If anything happened to her or the baby....  
  
"We don't have much time." Mary whispered as Elmer looked at her.  
"You have to help us get the second bell back before...."  
  
"Couldn't you just buy another bell or something?" Elmer muttered.  
What did she really need another bell for anyway? She was already wearing one. The little girl was helping Lona and he hated to refuse to help her but.... He looked down at Lona once more as he grip on him suddenly tightened. The way this thing was moving, shouldn't the baby have been here by now or something? This was just.... Something wasn't right about this!  
  
"Elmer..." Hook said as he gave him a look. The building started to tremble slightly once more as he spoke. They didn't have time to argue about this.  
  
"Listen, I'm perfectly willing to help but...." Elmer looked frantically from Lona to the door. Didn't they see that this just wasn't the best time for a séance? "Could we maybe do this later?" He winced as he heard a loud crashing from the hallway as the shaking increased. "Okay,  
later might not be the best idea but could we do this somewhere BESIDES the basement?"  
  
"They need the scanner. They can't do it anywhere else," Lona murmured, letting out a moan as the pain seized her once more. She felt tears starting to sting her eyes as the pain increased until she could feel nothing but the agony. Nothing was normal about a pregnancy that came to full term overnight but.... Her free hand moved down to the swell of her stomach. She could feel the baby but its movements were so weak like it was.... She closed her eyes the pain started to ease, a tear slipping down her cheek. She was losing the baby and.... Okay, this pregnancy was so unplanned it wasn't funny but she didn't want to lose her baby!  
  
"Elmer might be right about needing to get her out of here,"  
Christine said quietly as she looked up at Hook. She shifted the blankets covering Lona slightly, her eyes widening as she saw the blood beginning to stain them.  
  
As they talked, Mona wondered over to the door and peered out. A moment later, Antubis lumbered over to her to see what she was looking at.  
  
'Doesn't look like anyone's going anywhere.' the anteater said as he turned back to the group, nudging Mona away from the doorway with his snout. 'There's some sort of energy out there blocking the hall.'  
  
"What?" Elmer looked from the animal back to Lona, feeling himself starting to hyperventilate as he caught sight of the blood on the blankets.  
If they were trapped down there then.... He gently rested a hand on Lona's stomach, feeling the faint movements of their baby. They were going to die down here, they were both going to die and....  
  
Suddenly he looked up at Hook. No, he wasn't going to lose them!  
He lost everyone but he wasn't going to lose Lona and their baby! "If I help you, you have to help me save them. If anything happens...." He would do whatever they asked, anything, if in return they would do something to save Lona and their baby.  
  
Michael drifted over from where he had been quietly talking to Sally about her idea for the séance. "The Old Kingdom is where this problem first started." He said quietly as he knelt down, gently running a probing hand over Lona for a moment. "The best chance of correcting the problem may lie in returning there."  
  
"And for that you need the scanner," Lona said quietly. "Elmer,  
help me up."  
  
"What?" Elmer looked at her in shock. "No, you need to stay still!" If she moved, he was sure that that would just make things worse,  
would maybe even end any chance their baby had of surviving.  
  
"I'm the only one here who knows how to use the scanner. Help me up." Lona forced tears back as between Christine and Hook they managed to get her on her feet. She bit her lip as a sharp pain shot through her stomach with the movement. The baby.... She wouldn't let herself look at Elmer, motioning for him to get under the scanner as Christine helped her into her chair in front of the computer.  
  
"If everyone will please hold hands, we will begin," Sally said as Elmer finally reluctantly moved away from Lona and joined them. She felt for the young man but if any of them were to survive, they had to act now.  
  
Lona felt her eyes starting to slide closed as Sally talked,  
explaining what they were about to do. Without Mary there to help her, it felt as if all of her energy had suddenly departed in one gigantic rush.  
She forced her eyes open once more as the group joined hands, reaching out and entering the commands to start the scanner. Just as she finished, the building trembled once more, more violently than before, sending her chair skidding across the lab floor. As the chair smacked into the wall, she tumbled to the ground, dimly aware of the trail of blood that followed the chair's path. She felt the cold blackness once again surrounding her as her eyes slipped shut. The last thing she saw was a flash of bright light from the main lab area. 


	21. chapter 21

"You have some sort of fetish about morgues, don't you?" Antubis looked over at Elmer as the group stared around the morgue of the Old Kingdom.  
  
"What's Snout Boy talking about?" Peter asked Mary. "And does he even know what a fetish is?"  
  
Mary nodded. "He found a naughty magazine on Otto's desk once."  
The little girl glanced around the room, shivering slightly at the sight of the corpse on the table, before turning towards Elmer. "Where's Dr. Lona?  
You know, I don't think we really have time if you were wanting to do more naughty things with her."  
  
"Oh, Elmer, you have been bad, haven't you?" Hook muttered under his breath as they started to look around the morgue for Lona.  
"Oh, yes. You would really think the corpses would be a turn off,"  
Antubis said with a pointed look at Elmer as he headed for the morgue's other room. "In here!"  
  
"Lona?" Elmer rushed to her side, ignoring the anteater who seemed bound and determined to tell all about their visits to the morgue. He stared down at her, sudden fear washing over him at the sight. She was deathly pale once more, lying unmoving on the morgue table where their baby had been conceived. And the blood. She couldn't have been there more than a minute or so but already there was blood on the table, too much blood.  
"Lona?" he whispered, reaching out and starting to gather her up. She was still breathing, at least she was still breathing but....  
  
"Here, let us." Mary said quietly as she and Mona came over holding hands. Mary pulled herself up onto the table, cradling Lona's head in her lap once more and starting to gently stroke her forehead with one hand as Mona placed her free hand on Lona's stomach.  
  
Antubis crossed the room as well, his long tongue moving rapidly in and out as he licked at Lona's hands. "Looks like you might need to wait awhile on doing anymore of those naughty things."  
  
"And exactly what naughty things would he be talking about, Elmer?"  
Hook said with a slight laugh in his voice. It was hard to find any humor in the situation at hand with Lona just lying there practically lifeless but what else could they do? It wasn't like there was anything medically they could do for her with where they were.  
  
"Could we please not talk about naughty things?" Elmer muttered as he turned to face them for a moment before turning back to Lona. She was still so pale and still. Why wasn't she waking up? She woke up before!  
What if... what if she was too far gone for whatever the little girl could do to help? He felt tears stinging his eyes that he was barely able to hold back as he looked from her pale face to the blood on the table. The little hope he had for their baby practically vanished at the sight of the blood and as for Lona.... Wasn't losing the baby enough? If both of them died.... He felt himself starting to hyperventilate again. He had agreed to help! He was cooperating! Now couldn't they do something and save Lona and their baby?  
  
Lona felt herself starting to float gradually out of the cold, dark place once more but she resisted it. At least there, alone in the dark,  
the pain was gone and she didn't have to think about the baby. The baby,  
it had never even had a chance. Suddenly she heard a noise, the first noise she had heard in this place, a sort of slithering, rustling noise.  
  
"Time to come back, now." She suddenly heard a silky smooth voice say. "Better hurry before that boy turns blue and hits the floor. Looks like he's heading that way, you know."  
  
Elmer, was whatever was talking to her talking about him? She felt her will to resist waking slipping but she stubbornly clung to unconsciousness anyway. She couldn't go back and face the fact that the baby....  
  
"We really don't have time for this, you know." the voice said and then suddenly, something moved and all she could see were large white fangs.  
  
"Lona?" Elmer whispered as he suddenly saw her eyelids start to twitch and then suddenly shoot open. The anteater was snickering slightly but he ignored it. "Lona?" He reached out and took her hand carefully.  
Why wasn't she looking at him? What had he done wrong this time? 


	22. chapter 22

Lona could barely restrain herself from sobbing as she tried to look somewhere, anywhere but at Elmer. This wasn't his fault and she knew that all she was doing was making him think he had done something to blow things with her again but it just hurt so much to look at him and know that their baby.... Suddenly a pain seized her and she moaned, a tear s that the baby... The pain was back though, and she felt herself moaning once more, reaching out and snagging Elmer's hand and digging her fingers in as the pain gripped her. How long would this go on when the baby.... Suddenly she felt something, something different about this pain. She opened her eyes,  
confusion plain as she tried to figure out what had changed. The pains hadn't eased in intensity, that was for sure but there was something different and... Just then she felt a fluttering inside that rapidly increased in motion as the pain reached its peak and started to ease slightly. Her free hand moved down, resting on her stomach next to Mona's almost unable to believe what she was feeling. The baby... She felt more tearback though, and she felt herself moaning once more, reaching out and snagging Elmer's hand and digging her fingers in as the pain gripped her. How long would this go on when the baby.... Suddenly she felt something, something different about this pain. She opened her eyes,  
confusion plain as she tried to figure out what had changed. The pains hadn't eased in intensity, that was for sure but there was something different and... Just then she felt a fluttering inside that rapidly increased in motion as the pain reached its peak and started to ease slightly. Her free hand moved down, resting on her stomach next to Mona's almost unable to believe what she was feeling. The baby... She felt more tears slipping down her cheeks, tears of relief this time. The baby was okay! She hadn't lost it like she had feared.  
  
"Lona?" Elmer whispered, not sure of what to do to help her but at the same time sure that the reason she was crying was his fault. He reached out, trying to wipe her tears away as best he could. This was all his fault somehow, he was sure of it. Why had he even gone after Lona and put her in this danger? It was him. It had to be. He was cursed or something and... Their baby had never even had a chance, had... He felt himself starting to hyperventilate once more at the thought of the baby.  
He hadn't known about it for long, of course, but even though it was unspoken, he had wanted that baby.  
  
"Elmer, it's okay." Lona felt herself smiling even as another pain gripped her. She reached up and moved his hand down onto her stomach, now tensed from the pain, but with almost visible baby movements as well. She laughed inwardly at the expression on Elmer's face when he felt the baby.  
True, he could definitely be childish but still....  
  
"Mary?" Michael moved towards his sister with a questioning look.  
  
"I think she'll be okay," Mary said as she eased off of the table without Lona or Elmer even noticing. "Being here fixed things somehow."  
She glanced toward the doorway leading into the first room of the morgue and then into the rest of the Old Kingdom. "We don't have much more time though."  
  
"Okay," Hook said as he came over, trying not to glance at Elmer and Lona. That situation might be a bit odd even for Kingdom Hospital.  
"What do we need to do to stop this?"  
  
"We need to free the children," Sally said as she joined them as well. The very thought of all of those innocent children trapped here,  
being forced to relive their deaths over and over for so long tugged at her heart. Of all of the evil things in the world, was there anything worse than the torture of innocents?  
  
"And we need the second bell too, I think." Mary added slowly.  
She had always known in some way that her bell was important but the significance of the bells together still wasn't quite clear to her.  
  
Michael thought for a moment before motioning for Susan to come over. "Go with them." He told his student. "You should be able to detect Gottreich or that delinquent boy if they try to stop you. The rest of us will see about freeing the children." Michael barely remembered the details of the mill fire that weren't connected to his sister but one thing that was clear in his mind was the number of children who had perished. If the were going to save them, they were going to need all of the help they could get. "There's a chance that Jesse will decide to call his aunt and arrange for some sort of rescue attempt but the odds of that...."  
  
"I wouldn't put money on it," Susan said with a shake of her head as she reached out and snagged Mary and Mona's hands. "About our only chance of getting any sort of help is if Ms. Stevens comes by to give us a ride and figures out something's wrong." At least that had more of a chance of occurring than did their chances of Dr. James getting a clue but still... The heavy, foreboding feeling that permeated this place was increasing rapidly. "Let's go girls." She just wanted to do what they had to to fix this quickly so they could get out of there. They headed for the door followed by Peter and Sally.  
  
"Elmer?" Hook called as he looked back at the younger doctor.  
"Time to go."  
  
"What?" What was Hook talking about, telling him to go somewhere?  
Okay, he had agreed to help them if they would do something to help Lona and the baby but... Surely helping didn't involve leaving Lona alone in the middle of labor! Because if he did, well, they were just asking too much. Their baby was okay and there was no way that he was going to do anything to jeopardize that now!  
  
"Elmer." Hook moved away from the door and headed toward Elmer.  
They didn't have time to argue about this.  
  
"Listen, I helped already." Elmer said with a shake of his head.  
He wasn't giving in this time, no way! "And there is no way that I'm going to go off and leave Lona now! And you can't make me!"  
  
"Wait a minute," Lona said as she started to ease herself towards the edge of the table. Now that the fact that the baby was really okay had had time to sink in, the realization that they were back in the morgue where the baby had been conceived was hitting her. She took another glance around the room. Now why couldn't Elmer have brought them to the first morgue instead of this one? She didn't exactly want morgue listed on the baby's birth certificate but at least the first morgue they had been in was nicer! She swung her legs over the edge of the table and started to experimentally try to stand. She was feeling stronger now, not as drained.  
Maybe...  
  
"Lona!" Elmer caught her before she could fall as another pain hit. His eyes widened slightly in fear that the movement could have somehow harmed the baby but it felt the worry fade a bit a moment later when he could still feel the steady movements.  
  
"I might be able to do something to help if you can carry her,"  
Michael said as he came over. "With that boy roaming loose down here, it wouldn't be a good idea to leave her here."  
  
"Fine," Elmer said after a moment. He still wasn't sure that trying to move Lona was the greatest idea in her condition but he definitely knew that he wasn't going to be separated from her no matter what.  
  
"That's worked out," Antubis said as he turned and started towards the door with his fluffy tail swishing. "Now if none of the rest of you have any problems or desires to maybe take a break to do naughty things...."  
  
"Could you please not mention any naughty things?" Elmer called as he gathered Lona into his arms, He just hoped whatever they needed to do,  
they could do it quickly. 


	23. chapter 23

A plain white van pulled into the hospital parking lot. The woman behind the wheel slid the car into a slot near Stegman's vandalized Jag and got out. "I'll be right back," Caroline called as she headed for the hospital door, shaking her head as she passed Stegman's car.  
  
She glanced around as she reached the entrance to the hospital to see if Michael and the girls might have decided to wait outside but there was no sign of them. 'I hope they didn't have to try to find another way home,' She thought as she stepped towards the sliding doors, stopping in puzzlement when they didn't budge at her approach.  
  
"Tell me Jesse didn't decide to close down the hospital so he could go to supper," Caroline shook her head as he approached the door and tried to peer through the glass. After some of the harebrained ideas of Jesse's that his aunt had mentioned.... No, there he was frantically trying to prevent one of the doctors from running around the lobby screaming hysterically. She shook her head not sure she wanted to know what that was about as she rapped on the door.  
  
Dr. James turned from his attempts to stop Brenda from screaming something he didn't quite understand about Dr. Stegman and Mona Klingerman when he heard the rapping. His brow furrowed as he tried to place the woman who was knocking and looking rather impatient. He knew he had seen her before but...  
  
"Dr. James!" Caroline called as she waved for him to come over to the door.  
  
"Yes?" Jesse said as he approached still trying to figure out who the woman was.  
  
Caroline shook her head. He was really so clueless that it was almost funny. "I'm Ms. Stevens." Still no clue. "I catered the breakfast on Employee Relations you were at this morning. I'm from your aunt's school!" She let out a soft sigh as she finally saw comprehension on his face. "I'm here to pick up Professor Jensen and some of the students.  
Have you seen them?"  
  
A student. That rung a vague bell and Dr. James glanced around the lobby trying to recall. He shook his head as he finally remembered the girl running in. She had been trying to tell him something but what was it? Brenda had came in ranting about her sudden realization that Steg was an ass just then and what the girl had said had slipped his mind. He was sure it was nothing important, though.  
  
"Dr. James!" Caroline called, snapping him back to the situation at hand. "Have you seen them?" Honestly, why in the world was it taking so long for him to answer a simple yes or no question.  
  
"I vaguely recall a girl from the school," Jesse said as he looked around once more but saw no sign of the girl in "Now what was her name? I think it started with an S maybe?"  
  
"Susan." Caroline shook her head. "Open the door and let me in.  
I'll find them myself!"  
  
"Open the...." Jesse frowned as he finally noticed that the doors hadn't budged the entire time they had been standing there talking. Odd.  
Those doors usually opened for no reason whatsoever. "I suppose I need to file a maintance order with Johnny."  
  
"I hope you have another way for your employees to leave if you're going to do that." Caroline shook her head once again as she glanced around. There had to be another way into the hospital. Maybe the ER?  
  
"Wait a minute. I can fix this." Jesse fumbled around in his jacket pocket. Now where did he put that wand?  
  
Caroline turned, not really paying attention to what Jesse was doing, as she heard approaching footsteps. She tensed for a second at the sight of the two men before placing them as a couple of the paramedics that she had seen around town.  
  
"Hey," Danny called as he headed towards the front door. "What's going on? We've got an amputation and the ER doors are locked tight!"  
  
Before Caroline could even process this new information she suddenly realized what Jesse was doing. Her eyes widened as she saw the wand in his hand. "Get down!" she cried as she drug Ollie and Danny safely away from the door just as they heard a dull thud. Caroline risked stealing a peek to see what in the world had happened just in time to catch a bright red beam shooting over Otto's head before bouncing off a wall and shooting towards the ER. Nurse Von Trier had just stepped out of the ER to report the problem with the doors when the beam shot towards her, causing her to faint.  
  
"I hope your insurance covers that." Caroline shook her head as they heard continued crashing noises as the beam bounced it's way through the hospital. As she listened, what the two paramedics had said about the ER doors started to sink in. One set of doors being jammed could be put down to Jesse cutting building maintence again or Johnny B. Goode amusing himself avoiding work for the umpteenth day in a row. Two sets of doors though and especially the heavily trafficked ER doors.... She turned and headed back towards the van.... "Blinky!"  
  
"Yes, Missus?" A small creature with big ears and eyes and clad in a miniature caterer's outfit slipped out of the van and hurried over to her.  
  
"Blinky, there's something odd going on in the hospital. Could you see if you could get in and...." As she talked to her little elven assistant, Caroline was digging under the seat for her purse and cell phone.  
  
"Right away, Missus." the elf disappeared with a pop as Caroline headed for the doors once more.  
  
"Here, you can use this glue." Caroline pressed a small bottle into Danny's hands as she pulled out the cell phone and started to dial frowning a moment later as all she got was static. "You probably don't want to bring an amputation here with Dr. James on the loose with a wand anyway. Poor Professor Flakey was never a well man after...."  
  
Just then the elf reappeared, causing Ollie and Danny to jump back in surprise at the sight.  
  
"Missus, there's something bad, nasty-bad, in there, Missus!"  
Blinky looked back at the hospital doors nervously as if the thing she had encountered might be right behind her. "Missus, the little misses and the professor...."  
  
"Blinky, could you go back to the school and get some of the teachers?" Caroline glanced at the door once more with a frown. Blinky was one of the steadiest elves she knew and whatever was going on in there had scared her to death. That couldn't be good. As the elf vanished once more, she looked around the parking lot. There had to be something to get those doors open and... Her eyes fell on Stegman's car and she headed towards it with a determined look. That might work nicely if....  
  
"Give me a hand!" She called to Ollie and Danny, as she fumbled around inside the car, finally getting it out of park. The two paramedics looked at each other for a moment before heading over and helping her push the car out of its space and towards the door. This wasn't the strangest thing they had ever seen although it was getting up there.  
  
A minute later, Caroline squeezed through the shattered door and around Stegman's car to face Dr. James. "Professor Jensen and the girls,  
where did you last see them?" She demanded.  
  
Jesse looked from her to the now broken door with a distracted air.  
Brenda had fled as soon as the car had stopped moving and was now running around screaming in the parking lot. That just couldn't be good for hospital business.  
  
"Dr. James!" Caroline spoke louder, snapping him back to attention.  
  
"Oh, I think the girl, Susan, did you say, said something about the basement but..." Now exactly what had that girl been trying to tell him?  
He had a sneaking suspicion now that he should have listened.  
  
Caroline shook her head as she headed for the stairs and started down only to come racing back a several minutes later.  
  
"Were you aware you have a large energy field in your basement?"  
She said as she glared at Jesse. "And part of the ceiling has collapsed?"  
  
"It has? Really?" Jesse said before going into his usual cover-up mode when anything out of the ordinary happened at Kingdom Hospital. "Now,  
I'm sure that the ceiling just looks like it's collapsed. I understand Johnny's doing some routine maintence and...."  
  
Just then the ground beneath their feet trembled violently and a moment later Ollie appeared in the shattered door.  
  
"Hey, the E from your emergency sign just fell off the building and hit our ambulance!"  
  
"Dr. James," Caroline said with a stern look at him. "There is a large energy field in your basement, part of your basement ceiling has collapsed and I'm surprised the building is still level. And now your hospital seems to be shaking uncontrollably! I think it's time to order an evacuation!" 


	24. chapter 24

Elmer held Lona cuddled into his arms, stopping to hold her tighter as another pain hit and she buried her face against his shoulder as she moaned. He shook his head slightly as he looked from Lona to the group.  
  
"Hey, wait up!" He called before focusing his attention on Lona once more.  
She just felt so fragile in his arms. He wasn't sure if some of that might be due to whatever Michael had done to help him carry her but it was frightening all the same. If anything happened to her or the baby.... The baby. There was another problem. He still couldn't recall much about those med school classes on pregnancy but he was pretty sure that with how close those pains were it meant that there was going to be a baby coming pretty soon. He shook his head slightly, hoping that Lona didn't notice the sudden panic washing over him. He certainly didn't remember the classes that covered delivering babies! He thought he might have had the flu during those lessons!  
  
"Not doing any naughty things back here, are you?" the anteater suddenly appeared by his side from seemingly out of nowhere.  
  
"You just have to keep mentioning that, don't you?" Elmer said as he glared down at Antubis before trying to start forward once more.  
  
"Well, we could always talk about that he...."  
  
"Naughty things are fine, naughty things are fine!" Elmer interrupted before Antubis could continue with what he was saying. How did that anteater know so much anyway?  
  
"I have my sources," Antubis chuckled slightly at the expression on Elmer's face. Honestly, he hadn't had a chance to play with humans like this in ages. Mary was much too innocent although she honestly did know more than many of the people here, he would bet. And as for Peter.  
Suddenly the anteater stopped, his snout going up into the air before lunging forward and sinking is teeth into the leg of Elmer's pants.  
  
"Hey!" Elmer felt his grip on Lona starting to slip as he tried to pull away from Antubis. What was wrong with that thing? Did anteaters get rabies or... Suddenly there was a shudder, not of the ground this time but of the walls and ceiling and moment later a large pipe came crashing down right in front of them.  
  
"Elmer?" Hook called as the group hurried back towards them.  
After awhile working at Kingdom Hospital, the ground tremors weren't that much of a shock but wall and ceiling earthquakes now?  
  
"I think Jesse just tried to cast a spell," Michael said with a shake of his head. "I just hope it wasn't a severing charm again. Flakey cringes every time he sees a first year now. A shame he's the first year charms teacher."  
  
"Should he even be allowed a wand if things like this always happen when he uses it?" Natalie said as the stopped in front of the pipe. It was hanging diagonally across the hall with no space to squeeze under and definitely no way for Elmer to get over it while carrying Lona. What kind of hospital had her husband ended up being admitted to?  
  
"There's a petition circulating to that effect." Michael said as he moved to inspect the pipe.  
  
"Elmer, are you two alright?" Hook called again as he joined the ghost. They really didn't have time for delays but they just couldn't leave Elmer and Lona there to wait. Who knows if they would even be able to return for them.  
  
"Ummm, we're fine, I think," Elmer stared down at Antubis in shock as the anteater nudged him over to the wall and motioned for him to sit.  
He slid down the wall, holding Lona snuggled against him. The anteater had... had actually saved them! Well, maybe he wouldn't object too much to having to hear all the details of the naughty things they did in the morgue repeated to anyone in the area.  
  
Antubis shook his head as he looked at the pipe. He honestly didn't know why the hospital had these things in their ceiling. Granted,  
they made good hiding places for borrowed material but they were definitely too convenient for dropping on people. He reared up on his hind paws,  
sinking his front claws into the metal.  
  
Elmer watched for a moment before turning his attention back to Lona once more. She was still much to pale for his liking, her skin too cool to the touch. He struggled out of his lab coat and wrapped it around her as she let out another moan. "It's okay, it's going to be okay," he murmured as he held her tightly. There was so much they needed to talk about, the situation with the baby and what they were going to do about it but he was afraid to speak the words as if by talking about the future it would somehow jinx it.  
  
Paul snuck a look from a doorway nearby, sneering at the sight of Elmer fussing over Lona. Honestly, how pathetic could you get? He's been rejected too many times to count and he just kept coming back for more.  
Totally pathetic. And that baby... Babies, the only thing worse than them was that little pest, Mary. Looks like he hadn't disposed of the brat to be yet but that was something that could be corrected. And it would work even better now. He could get rid of the anteater too. They would never know what hit them  
  
Something, Elmer didn't know what, caused him to look up just as Paul stepped into view, a glowing ball of energy growing in his hand. With a yell, he jerked Lona down completely onto the floor and fell on top of her as the memory of what happened in the sleep lab, of holding Lona lifeless in his arms washed over him. Elmer ducked his head down lower and closed his eyes for a second as he felt the blast of energy shooting over them. There was nothing that he wanted more that to hurt that boy, to make him sorry he had even thought about touching Lona and the baby but.... He shot a glance around the hallway but there was nowhere that they could go,  
no escape route. He didn't care so much for himself but Lona and the baby... Please, please..."  
  
Antubis roared as he dodged Paul's first blast, swerving around Elmer and Lona as he lunged forward, trying to sink his fangs into the boy's throat.  
  
"Get off of me!" Paul shouted, struggling to push Antubis away.  
With that blasted thing right on him, he couldn't focus enough to generate a second blast. Suddenly the anteater dropped down and with a smirk Paul's hand started to glow. Before he could even generate a small blast,  
however, he was suddenly hit by the pipe as it came flying towards him,  
knocking him down the hallway and out of sight.  
  
"You know I really wish that boy was a student," Michael said with a shake of his head he looked down the way Paul had disappeared. "A lifetime detention cleaning up after the school unicorns would do him some good."  
  
"Lona?" Elmer pulled himself off of her as soon as he felt it was safe, anxiously looking for any sign of injury. He felt vaguely that he had done something wrong in not trying to stop that boy himself, in not fighting back but.... His eyes suddenly widened as he caught sight of a pool of some sort of liquid beneath Lona. No, she couldn't be bleeding again. The little girl wasn't there and....  
  
"Might want to remember to breathe," Antubis said as he came over,  
sniffing at the liquid. "It's not blood. Looks like her waters just broke. You know, we might want to get a move on. You weren't wanting that baby born in the hallway, right?"  
  
Lona moaned in pain as Elmer hastily pulled himself to his feet,  
gathering her into his arms once more. Although she didn't understand how it was possible, the pain was worse now, almost blinding and she didn't have the energy to even speak as it slowly eased somewhat. Oh, this couldn't be happening. She couldn't be about to give birth in a hospital that burned over sixty years ago with.... She opened her eyes for a moment looking into Elmer's rather panicked face before stealing a glance at Christine and Hook. Surely someone here had an idea of what to do to deliver a baby!  
  
"There's nothing to it," Antubis said as he glanced up at her.  
"I've seen it lots of times."  
  
Elmer didn't even want to think about that. Surely someone besides the anteater.... Just then he noticed something odd. "Hey, does anyone else smell smoke?"  
  
"It's coming from down here!" Aubrey called as she cautiously moved down the corridor, stopping when she suddenly heard screaming. She darted over to the door the sounds seemed to be coming from and started to pull on it. "Come on! Hurry!"  
  
"Hey, I thought we were supposed to prevent a fire, not stop one!"  
Elmer called as he followed the others as best he could. Hadn't he heard something about smoke being bad for babies and mothers? "Shouldn't we go upstairs and get some fire extinguishers or something?" 


	25. chapter 25

Caroline shook her head as she glared at Jesse. Honestly, his hospital was shaking like the Jello castle she had done just last week.  
When buildings not made of food did that, it seemed that it was only sensible to vacate them post haste. Now if only she could somehow beat that notion into Jesse's head.  
  
"Really, the shaking is just structural settling," Jesse said in what he hoped was a convincing tone as he looked around the lobby nervously for anyone who might be taking note of Caroline's repeated suggestions that the hospital should be cleared of people immediately. This would never do if the news got out about Kingdom Hospital's tiny little seismological disturbances.  
  
Just then there were a series of loud pops from the parking lot,  
the noises causing Nurse Von Trier, who had finally woke from her faint, to promptly collapse again.  
  
"Jesse James!" A woman of about Sally's age with dark hair pulled into a bun and royal blue robes billowing came stalking into the hospital.  
"I have just left my school and 3000 students to the dubious care of Professor Flakey! Would you like to explain to me where my Defense professor is and why your hospital seems to be shaking uncontrollably?"  
  
"Aunt Eleanor, how nice to see you," Jesse said with a nervous look around the lobby. "I don't think you've ever visited Kingdom Hospital before, have you? Why don't I give you a little tour of our fine establishment?"  
  
"I don't want to take a tour of your fine establishment." Eleanor glanced around the room critically. Nurse fainted on the floor, security guard hiding behind his desk looking shell shocked. Not good signs.  
Suddenly the ground gave another lurch. "As a matter of fact, I would like to leave your fine establishment before it collapses on my head." She turned to Caroline. "What is going on here? Blinky was a bit panicked when she returned."  
  
"I'm not sure but there's some sort of energy field down in the basement and part of the ceiling is collapsed down there." Caroline said with a worried shake of her head. Those tremors seemed to be getting worse.  
  
"The ceiling just looked like it collapsed!" Jesse said hastily.  
"It's just some routine repair work that Johnny's doing though. "  
  
"I taught Johnny. He certainly did no work in my class and I highly doubt you've inspired him to accomplish anything since." Suddenly a large panel from the ceiling fell, barely missing Otto's head and sending Blondi flying for the relative safety of the parking lot as another tremor rocked the building.  
  
"Eleanor, the letter G nearly hit a paramedic out here!" a woman with short blonde hair and emerald green robes called as she poked her head in the door.  
  
"Jesse, the letters of this hospital are trying to kill people!"  
Eleanor grabbed his shirt collar and drug him over to Otto's desk and picked up the intercom microphone, shoving it into his hands. "Get these people to start evacuating now!"  
  
"What do you expect me to tell them?" Jesse stared down at the microphone as panic washed suddenly over him. If people thought that Kingdom Hospital was unsound...  
  
"Tell them that it's a fire safety drill or something," Caroline said with a shake of her head. "Eleanor, you better take a look at what's going on in the basement. I have a bad feeling Michael and the girls are down there."  
  
"What is going on?" Louis Traff demanded as he hurried across the parking lot to Jesse, who was standing next to the catering van watching patients beginning to slowly trickle out the doors.  
  
"The city of Lewiston is holding a fire safety drill for all public buildings." That sounded slightly believable, didn't it? And wouldn't it look good on him if he was committed to the safety of the patients? The building suddenly shuddered once more and the letter C came crashing down.  
Well, that is it would if the patients weren't crushed in an earthquake.  
  
"You are aware that we're the only public building open at this hour, right?" Louis said as he glanced around scanning the slowly growing crowd for his son.  
  
"Well, in that case, we've won, haven't we? We can now proudly say we have the best record when it comes to fire safety out of all public buildings in Lewiston!" Jesse said. You know, that sounded a bit believable. He even believed it slightly. With a vague nod at Louis, he wandered off to find someone else to announce their new achievement in hospital safety to.  
  
"Michael!" Eleanor called as she stood in the stair doorway,  
surveying the energy field blocking any further movement. The basement,  
things always seemed to happen in the basement. The mill fire, the fire at the first Kingdom.... And of course if something strange had started down there once more, she was sure that Michael would be in the thick of it hoping to finally find his missing sister. She reached out, touching the field tentively with a finger, jerking her hand back a moment later as the skin started to blister.  
  
"You better go upstairs and see if you can figure out what started this thing." A woman drifted down the stairs, her dark hair arranged in ringlets and the Victorian style pink dress she was wearing setting off her cocoa skin perfectly. Although she seemed perfectly normal if a bit strangely dressed at first, on a closer look, one would notice that you could see right through the woman. She moved to the field and stared into it, concern filling her eyes.  
  
"And Eleanor, tell your nephew to hurry on getting those people out of here. I was in San Francisco on sabbatical back in 1906. If this hospital goes, it's sure to trigger a fire and with the tunnels running under the street and the gas mains, it could spread like wildfire before we could do a thing. Hundreds could die." 


	26. chapter 26

"Get back!" The screams were almost a wave of sheer terror as they approached the door. Michael motioned for Aubrey to move away from the doorway and for the others to stay well back as he waved his hand and the door flew open, a burst of flames shooting out engulfing him.  
Hook started forward involuntarily at the sight only to stop a moment later as Michael appeared once more, the flames slowly flickering into nothing around him.  
  
"Shall we go?" Michael stepped through the doorway, his energy focused on forcing the flames down. As he appeared on the stairway leading into the mill basement, his concentration flickered for a moment at the sight. Children, hundreds of children, screaming, trying to futilely flee from the inferno. His eyes automatically scanned the children's faces,  
looking for his sister, although he knew at the moment she, at least the Mary that existed in the present, was with Susan and the others trying to retrieve the second bell.  
  
"Whoa!" Breanna gasped as she peered around Michael trying to see what was going on. Everyone had heard about the mill fire but to actually see it, to see the faces of the children who they knew were doomed to.  
"No." She shook her head, as if that would force her to forget what she knew of the children's fates.  
  
Hook shook his head as he joined the girl in looking down at the frantic children for a moment before starting down the steps, motioning for the others to follow quickly. He could see the fire starting to lick at the timbers supporting the stairs and knew they couldn't hold for long, not for long enough to get those kids out that way so how.... Rickman's drawings, those had to be some sort of clue but.... A trapdoor? Why would there be.... "Hey!" he called over his shoulder to Michael, "Peter drew something, your sister trying to open some sort of trapdoor. Do you have any idea what that could be?"  
  
"They brought in material through the tunnels under the mill,"  
Michael said slowly after a moment. The tunnels. Mary had been trying to get down into the tunnels? Things were starting to make a bit of sense for him now, why the hospital basement had been the site of so many problems for so long.  
  
"There's a way out from there?" Hook started forward with Christine and Natalie right behind him. He waved frantically trying to attract the children's attention, reaching out and snagging a couple of kids as they ran past him. It seemed impossible but they had to do something. They couldn't just let these kids burn.  
  
"If we can get into the tunnels, I can get us out." Michael said with a slight laugh. "The tunnels make up part of your basement now, you know." He stopped for a moment, his eyes once more surveying the scene,  
trying to find the most likely spot for the trap door to the tunnels to be.  
He had been too young at the time of the fire, had never even been inside the mill but.... His eyes settled on one place and he nodded, satisfied,  
before turning back to the others. Hook had a couple of the children while Christine and Natalie were dragging several more to join them but....  
  
"Children!!" he called, his voice automatically slipping into teacher mode, projecting throughout the mill basement. "This way! Single file line, no pushing or shoving, please!! Quickly now!!"  
  
"Why is it always a single file line?" Breanna whispered to her sister as they moved through the basement, herding the children the right way.  
  
"They might lose a double line," Abel said as he and Christa followed after the two girls, a group of children behind them. The children knew that they should be frightened with the flames leaping all around them but these strange people.... They didn't seem to be too alarmed and that served to ease some of the children's fears. Surely if the adults weren't frightened things couldn't be too bad.  
  
"You know, you might want to move some time today," Antubis said as he looked around Elmer. "Everyone else seems to be trying to help. Did you want to go find a private place to do naughty things instead?"  
  
Elmer glared at the anteater, not trusting himself to speak as he held Lona close to him, trying to keep her face against his shoulder so she wouldn't breathe in as much of the smoke or.... He shook his head. They dyed material down here, didn't they? And they certainly hadn't had any organizations to make sure the materials they were using weren't hazardous back in the 1860s. No, no way. There was no way that he was going to take Lona down in there with who knows what sort of chemical fumes in the air,  
not with her so sick and about to give birth! He backed up a step, moving towards the door. Suddenly having his firstborn child born in the morgue didn't seem like such a bad idea. At least the morgue wasn't on fire!  
  
"Don't think you have a choice about going back." Antubis nudged him forward with his snout and towards the steps. "Paul's back there,  
remember? You didn't want to play with him, did you?"  
  
Elmer hesitated before starting down the stairs with the anteater right behind him. He didn't want to do this, was sure this was too much risk for Lona and the baby but.... He glanced down as Lona moaned, lifting her head to look up at him.  
  
"Just keep your eyes closed, okay?" Elmer whispered as he pressed her face back against his shoulder once more. "We'll be out of here in just a few minutes." He cringed as Lona started coughing as the got closer to the ground, struggling against the commonsense urge to turn back and get her out of there immediately. Suddenly he felt something smacking into his legs and he stumbled, barely able to keep his grip on Lona and he felt himself falling down the last few steps. He tried to turn, to keep her from hitting the ground, as the floor came rushing towards him but something was gripping him, keeping him vaguely upright while at the same time dragging them further from the stairs.  
  
"Go on, move!" Antubis released his hold on Elmer's pant leg,  
nudging him forward rapidly with his snout as the flames fully engulfed the stairway. The anteater moved away for a moment, stepping through the flames and appearing a moment later dragging a quivering little boy. He gave Elmer a pointed look as he poked him once more in the direction of Hook and the others.  
  
Michael looked up as Elmer, Lona and Antubis joined them by the now opened doors to the tunnels. "Go first," He motioned for them to proceed the rest down the stairs after a glance at Lona's pale face. She definitely didn't need to be in this fire for any longer than necessary.  
"Just stay straight and the tunnel should open up onto some railroad tracks."  
  
"Railroad tracks? Please tell me we aren't going to get to prevent a train wreck next," Elmer muttered under his breath as he started down the steps, looking back a moment later to see a line of children starting to follow.  
  
"That's it. Single file, no pushing or shoving." Michael said as the others started to herd the children down the tunnel after Elmer. If nothing interfered, surely they would be able to get them all out safely. 


	27. chapter 27

The crowd was growing faster now and as Louis moved through them,  
his concern for his son was growing. Where in the world was Elmer? At first Louis had thought that the fire drill was some sort of joke by Dr.  
James to promote humor in the hospital or something but now.... He frowned as looked towards the door just as Otto came out carrying a large box full of magazines as well as a basket of dog toys. If this was just some sort of drill then why....  
  
Suddenly Louis felt a trembling and looked in shock as the hospital visibly shook. And did it look like the hospital logo was starting to.  
move? He shook his head for a moment, blinking to try to make sense of what he was seeing. No, it really did look like that logo had moved just a bit. He involuntarily took a step away from the building, his eyes scanning the crowd once more. Where was his son? He felt a wave of panic that he was barely able to suppress as he hurried over to Otto. If anyone would know where Elmer was, it would be Otto. And surely Elmer was someplace safe. He had to be someplace safe! If.... Not again, just not again.  
  
"Otto, have you seen Elmer anywhere?" Louis demanded as he hurried over, looking up at the hospital again as he spoke. It was trembling again or had it ever really stopped. Oh, this wasn't good, wasn't good at all.  
Where was his son?  
  
"Elmer?" Otto shook his head as he tried to think. He knew he had seen Elmer or.... Oh, that was it! "He called me from the sleep lab right before...." Now how could this be explained? "Things went stranger than normal. He was wanting me to page Dr. Hook down there. Why are you asking? Isn't he up here?" Otto glanced around himself as he talked.  
  
"No, he isn't." Louis said slowly. The sleep lab. He shook his head as he headed towards the building. Lona had probably convinced Elmer to help her drag all of her research to safety. The letter Y crashed to the ground as he started in the smashed door, anger slowly building. He liked Lona but if she was putting his son in danger.... Anyone who wasn't an idiot could see that the building was about to collapse! He struggled against the crowd of people trying to reach the basement doors. This was his fault. He should have done something to break Elmer's crush on Lona long ago and now she was using it and putting his only remaining child in danger! When he saw her....  
  
Just then a hand grabbed his arm and he turned to find Dr. James standing there. "No, no, no! No going back into the building during the fire drill. We have to treat this like a real fire or we won't get our reward!" As he talked, Dr. James was dragging Louis back outside once more. "Did you know we set a record for the fastest evacuation of a building during a fire safety drill in Lewiston?"  
  
Louis impatiently shook Jesse's hand off. "I don't care about that! My son's still in there and...."  
  
"He couldn't be. Attendance at the fire safety drill is mandatory,  
you know," Jesse said with a smile. A fire safety drill, that was all this was.  
  
"Hey, has anyone seen my mother anywhere?" Bobby asked as he came over, glancing up at the hospital in concern as he spoke. Okay, that logo was definitely moving.  
  
"I'm sure she's around here somewhere," Jesse said with a glance over at Bobby. "Have you heard about the record the hospital just set for...."  
  
"Dr. James, this isn't a fire drill!" Louis shouted. "The building looks like it's about to collapse and the hospital logo is moving!  
My son is missing somewhere in there and I am going in there and finding him!"  
  
Don't be silly. You can't go in the hospital during a fire drill."  
Jesse reached out and grabbed Louis and Bobby, pulling them further away as he talked, glancing around as he did so to make sure no one had took note of the mention of the hospital collapsing. "Now, tell me what you think of the new holographic technology we're integrating into our logo? I think it really makes our hospital stand out, don't you?"  
  
Blondi rolled his eyes as he passed the humans, not really listening to what they were saying but all the same catching enough to get the gist of Dr. James' attempt at a cover-up. The dog moved over to the catering van, ducking out of sight as a trey of cookies was passed out the rear to a waiting human. He sniffed as the cookies were carried off in the direction of a batch of children. They smelled delicious but how was he.... This was definitely a two creature job and he hadn't seen his pal the anteater anywhere out there. He sniffed once more trying to catch the anteater's scent. Maybe attendance at a fake fire drill wasn't mandatory for anteaters.  
  
Suddenly Blondi's nose twitched and he glanced over to spot a dog... No, it wasn't a dog but some sort of wolf, he thought, heading his way. Hmmmmm. A wolf. Now that had potential. The anteater was perfect for invisibly tripping people. Blondi licked his lips at the thought of the ten dinner trays they had managed to scatter once. A wolf could work as well, though. Well, that is if it was smart enough to take direction.  
  
"Hey," Blondi sidled over towards the wolf as he talked. "Would you..."  
  
The wolf glanced over at the catering van for a moment before looking back at Blondi. "You can just ask them for the cookies. Elves understand us, you know."  
  
"Not as much fun." Blondi took another sniff as he drew closer to the wolf, a startled expression suddenly on his face. A werewolf?  
  
"You wouldn't have seen a girl, would you? She's got brown hair,  
about fourteen...." the wolf paused, trying to think about how to best describe Susan.  
  
"She thinks Dr. James is an idiot?" Blondi added.  
  
"Who doesn't?" The wolf shook his head. He had certainly never met anyone who hadn't found Jesse an idiot. If they existed, he was pretty sure they were an endangered species. "So, you've seen her?"  
  
"She came up from the basement and then she went back down."  
Blondi paused for a moment as he tried to recall exactly what he had seen.  
"There were a couple more girls just a bit younger than her and...." Wait a minute. The anteater's human, little Mary! She had been there too and.... "There was Mary and... Hook and Christine and...." Well, it seemed like the basement might be a bit crowded. Was his friend down there too?  
  
"I think you better come and talk to someone," the wolf said as he motioned for Blondi to follow him. If all those people were down in the basement.... This wasn't good at all. 


	28. chapter 28

Michael looked at the flames, rapidly approaching as Hook and Christine finished shooing the last of the children down into the tunnel entrance. The tunnel was the only way out but if those flames reached the entrance before they could get out the other end, the result would be the same as if the children had stayed inside the mill.  
  
"Go!" Michael motioned for the others to follow the children down into the tunnels. He moved towards the flames resolutely as Hook quickly sized up the situation and then turned and headed down. He had never tried anything on this scale before but he would hold back these flames, no matter the cost. Not again, that fire was not going to repeat itself once more. Suddenly Michael herd footsteps and looked down to find Breanna moving to stand next to him facing the wall of flames.  
  
"I can help." The girl bit her lip nervously as she spoke. She wasn't really sure if she could do this or not but didn't she have to try if there was a chance she could help at all?  
  
"No, go with the...."  
  
"Professor, I can do it, I know I can! I've practiced lots!"  
Breanna cried. "I didn't want to blow up the potions lab anymore and...."  
The flames suddenly jumped forward towards her face and she jumped back,  
closing her eyes as suddenly the flames faded into nothingness.  
  
Michael watched this carefully. Perhaps Breanna could really help but at the same time he was reluctant to allow a student in his care to expose herself to unnecessary danger.  
  
"Please, Professor, we don't have much time. Maybe with both of us, we can stop this," Breanna said quietly. She could feel a pressure building inside from absorbing the small flames. What would trying to absorb even more do? But she had to try.  
  
Michael nodded, motioning for Breanna to move behind him as he stretched out his arms, bone chilling cold suddenly finding a home in the heat of the inferno. Now if the others would just hurry, if Mary and her friends could find the second bell quickly....  
  
Lona bit her lip, trying to keep from screaming as they moved through the tunnel. At least the area was free of smoke and she could actually breathe but.... The pains were worse, almost constant now. Why wasn't this baby here already? Not that Lona was any more eager to give birth in the tunnels under a mill that had burned over one hundred years ago than she had been to give birth in a hospital that burned over sixty years ago but..... Suddenly there was another pain, sharper than before and she couldn't hold back the scream this time.  
  
"Lona?" Elmer stopped, not sure of what to do. He looked down into her pale face, tears now slipping down her cheeks as the pain gripped her. He looked around frantically for help, for Hook or Christine but all that he could see was a continuous flow of children, a large number now stopping and staring at him in puzzlement.  
  
"Move!" Antubis growled at the children, shoving a few forward impatiently with his snout as he came over to Elmer, taking a testing sniff of the air as he approached. Some sort of metallic smell in the air. Not good. "Here, put her down."  
  
Elmer automatically obeyed although he wasn't really sure why he was listening to a large anteater. He settled Lona back against the tunnel wall, cradling her head in his lap as the anteater moved around her,  
sniffing of her stomach and prodding the bulge of their baby gently with his snout.  
  
Lona gripped his hand tightly as another stabbing pain washed over her. She could dimly sense the anteater moving at her side, doing something to her stomach but it was if this was happening somewhere far away that she wasn't really connected to. She was cold, suddenly she was so cold and.... Something was wrong. She looked up into Elmer's equally frightened eyes as the pain eased slightly. No, this couldn't be happening, not after all that they had gone through already! Children had never really been something that she had considered seriously, especially since Mr. Right had never came along but... She wanted this baby and if anything happened to it.... She closed her eyes, feeling the jerky movements inside just before another pain hit. They were in the 1860s.  
They were in the 1860s and something was wrong and...  
  
"It's turned funny," Antubis muttered as he finished his inspection and looked over at Elmer for a moment before glancing back down the tunnel. Now where were those other doctors? Luckily the tunnels were fairly dim and he didn't think Elmer had noticed the renewed bleeding yet.  
  
"Turned...." Elmer closed his eyes for a moment, trying desperately to recall any mention of delivering babies he might have heard in med school. Of all weeks that he could have picked up the flu and a 102 degree fever, why did he end up sick that week? If something was wrong with the way the baby was turned, did that mean that it couldn't be born normally, that Lona and the baby were going to.... He couldn't bring himself to even think the word. This couldn't be happening, he couldn't lose them now! 


	29. chapter 29

Elmer looked from Lona's pale face back towards the tunnel entrance, hoping to see Hook or Chris or pretty much anyone that might be able to do something to help Lona and the baby. Children, just children,  
nothing but what felt like an endless sea of children.  
  
'Keep moving!' Antubis growled as he shoved several of the children who were stopping to look curiously at Lona and Elmer. 'It's just a baby being born. You've seen it before and you'll see it again. Nothing to look at here. Now move!' He shook his head as he moved back over to Elmer and Lona. Honestly, Mary was fairly bright if hopelessly naive when it came to seeing the good in people. What was wrong with these kids.  
Maybe the fumes from all of that dye killed a few brain cells?  
  
Elmer glanced up from Lona to the anteater before looking back along the tunnel once more. No, still nothing but children. He hesitated,  
not believing he was about to do this but.... Before he could let himself think about it anymore and become more convinced it was a bad idea, he blurted out, "You said you knew something about babies being born. Do you?" He shook his head slightly as he spoke, not really believing he had just asked a large anteater to lend a paw at the birth of his firstborn child.  
  
'I've been in Mary's family for over a thousand years and some of them were very fond of each other. Of course I know about babies.'  
  
"You've been in Mary's family for over a thousand years. Wonder what they did to be punished like that," Elmer murmured under his breath.  
  
'I heard that.' Antubis glared at Elmer for a moment before reaching out and gently prodding Lona's stomach with his snout once more.  
It wouldn't take much to fix the problem. Probably if it was left alone long enough, time itself would correct things. If that baby could get itself turned wrong in the middle of pains like Lona was having, it could probably turn back once more. The question was if Lona could last long enough for time to correct the problem. She seemed stronger here than she had back in the new Kingdom but she was starting to slowly weaken once more.  
  
Elmer looked down at Lona, gently stroking her forehead with one hand as she moaned through another pain. He wasn't so sure that she would agree with what he was about to do but what other choice did they have? He didn't see Hook or Chris anywhere and it didn't look like they were heading back to their Kingdom anytime soon. "Can you fix this?" Elmer didn't look over at Antubis as he spoke. Okay, he could somehow believe that the creature might know something about childbirth but did that mean he knew how to actually correct whatever was wrong?  
  
For once, Antubis hesitated slightly before speaking to Elmer.  
Fixing the problem would be simple, likely rather painful, but simple. As to whether or not he could do it, though.... He glanced down at his claws before speaking. 'Nothing hard about fixing things. You're supposed to be a doctor, you know. Didn't they teach you how to fix this? Or were you maybe doing more naughty things when....'  
  
"I had a 102 degree fever! It was hardly my fault!" Elmer muttered as he looked from the anteater to Lona. Of course, even though he knew realistically that his lack of knowledge wasn't his fault but bad luck, it didn't make things feel any less like he was to blame.  
  
Lona could hear Elmer and the anteater talking but they sounded far away, their words unintelligible. The pain was overwhelming now. She barely managed to muffle a scream knowing that it would only make things worse if Elmer knew exactly how bad this was. She looked up into his frightened face, forcing herself to push past the pain slightly to see him clearly. He looked so afraid and she felt a tear slipping down her cheek,  
not for herself this time but for him. Contrary to what she had expected when she woke up and discovered her condition, Elmer did really want this baby and now.... He reached up, gently touching his face, wishing there was something that she could say to comfort him.  
  
"Lona...." Elmer took her hand, stroking her forehead once more with the other hand. No, he wasn't going to lose her and their baby! He had lost his brother, his mother, but not Lona and the baby as well. He looked up at Antubis with firm resolve on his face. If that anteater could do something to save them.... "Help her!"  
  
This time Antubis was the one who glanced back along the tunnel hoping for some sign of the two other doctors. No, just more children.  
Really, it hadn't seemed like there were so many children in the mill the last time he was there.  
  
"Hey!" Elmer couldn't believe that anteater was letting himself get distracted at a time like this! "You said you knew what to do about this! Were you telling the truth or..."  
  
'Of course I know how to fix this.' Antubis glared at Elmer for implying that he might actually not know about something before dropping down onto his haunches beside them and slowly reaching out with a paw,  
gingerly touching Lona's stomach.  
  
"Well, then fix it!" Elmer demanded not even looking up from Lona's pale face. "It's going to be alright, " he whispered to her as he stroked her forehead. "We're going to get this fixed in just a minute and you and the baby will be just fine."  
  
'This might hurt a little.' Antubis prodded a bit more firmly trying to decide exactly where his paws should go to best avoid cutting Lona with his claws. A moment later he found what he thought was a workable position and moved his other paw onto Lona's stomach as well.  
  
Lona blinked as she felt the sudden pressure on her stomach and then a sharp pain, bad but with surprise she realized not as bad as the other pains. She tried to focus her vision on what in the world was going on but she couldn't make anything out clearly. She bit her lip as the pain increased once more. The baby, were they doing something to help the baby?  
  
Elmer told himself to stay focused on Lona's face and not to watch whatever the anteater was doing but he couldn't help but look up as the large creature suddenly moved, pressing and twisting on Lona's stomach with what looked like incredible force. He had to fight to keep himself from crying out and pushing Antubis away, knowing what he was doing had to be hurting Lona but... Would it help them, save Lona and the baby? He wanted to believe that the anteater knew what he was doing but....  
  
He forced himself to look away from Antubis but he couldn't bring himself to look down at Lona either, knowing that he was the one who had given permission for something that would cause her more pain He glanced up at the children that were moving past only to find that they were no longer moving forward but slowly backing up, heading towards the tunnel entrance once more. What?  
  
Before Elmer could think, before he could ask one of the kids what was going on, he heard a sinister laugh and looked down the tunnel as Paul stepped into view, his hands glowing white as energy build.  
  
"Can't have you saving the kiddies now," Paul said with a chuckle as he gave Elmer a contemptuous look. "Not that you're very good at that,  
now are you? Can't even save your own kid."  
  
"I thought he was still back in the hospital," Elmer muttered as he looked at Paul, having to fight down sudden guilty feelings that the boy's words induced at the mention of the baby. The baby. The guilt begin to fade as he recalled what that boy had tried to do to Lona and the baby,  
anger taking its place instead. He looked from Lona to Antubis before making a decision. Antubis was powerful, there was no question of that,  
but he was also the only one there who might be able to help Lona and the baby. As for him...  
  
"Take care of her," Elmer whispered as he shifted slightly, easily Lona's head out of his lap and slipping to his feet, pressing back into the shadows of the wall as he did so. "If I can get him out of the way, get her out of here." Elmer moved away before he could change his mind about leaving Lona. That boy had hurt her, had tried to kill her and their baby twice already. He wasn't going to get a third shot at them, not even if it cost him his own life to keep them safe. 


	30. chapter 30

Peter, Sally, the two little girls and Susan crept slowly down the hallway heading towards the Pain Room. Peter shook his head slightly. It seemed like they had been walking forever down here and with his wife off some place with the others trying to stop a fire, he had to admit that he was worried.  
  
"Dr. Gottreich can change things down here," Mary said quietly as she looked up for a moment before turning to scan the corridor once more,  
shivering slightly. She wanted her brother and Antubis and for this to be over before anyone got hurt. She let out a slight giggle as she thought of the other group. She definitely wanted to get back to them before Dr. Lona had her baby. She didn't want to miss seeing that.  
  
Susan motioned to the others to stop with a frown. She could feel the sick, dark feeling pressing in from all around them, not exactly like it had done before that lunatic doctor had appeared but like his influence was surrounding them. She closed her eyes as she concentrated, trying to sense what they were looking for. It had to be that room where she was getting those horrible feelings but....  
  
"This way." Susan motioned them forward after a moment, moving with her eyes closed this time. If Gottreich was somehow changing things to keep them away from the second bell then maybe....  
  
"That's it," Sally whispered as suddenly they were standing in front of what seemed to be one of many doors in this strange place. Yet,  
there was something different about it, something evil. Sally shivered as she stared at the room. She had been here before, she didn't quite remember it but she knew she had been here before. She slowly backed a step away from the door not wanting to be so close, knowing that if she entered, she would recall something that was best left alone.  
  
"It's okay," Mary said softly as she reached out and took Sally's hand, turning the door knob with the other. "It's just a memory, you know.  
Memories can't really hurt you, not if you don't let them."  
  
"Well, at least Paul's not in here," Peter said as they stepped into the room. He looked over at Sally with a worried expression.  
Something about this place was bothering her, well bothering her more than what he would have expected. The turned, looking around the room as he did so for any sign of a hiding place for the second bell. "Anyone got any idea where we should start looking?"  
  
"I don't know," Susan said quietly, barely able to force herself to stay on her feet, let alone move in this room. The aura of evil was so overpowering it was all that she could do to stay there. What in the world had happened in here in the past? Or were bad things continuing to happen here? She closed her eyes, trying to center her focus. She could feel the second bell just slightly but the sense of evil was too overwhelming,  
covering it up so that she couldn't zero in on its location.  
  
Sally slowly looked around the old room, her eyes drawn to something on the wall, a glass case with a fire hose inside and.... She walked across the room, reaching out and gently touching the red axe hanging beside the case. 'In Case of Fire, Break Glass.' Something, she felt something a vague memory starting to form as she closed her eyes fighting against it. Whatever had happened to her here, she didn't want to remember.  
  
"It's okay," Mary said as she moved to Sally's side again and took her hand, leading her away from the glass. "We have to find the second bell now, though."  
  
"A bell," Sally shook her head, knowing what Mary was talking about but at the same time caught with her thoughts in the past. She paused for a moment, looking down at the little girl as if seeing her for the first time. "You were there, weren't you? Ringing your bell?"  
  
Mary nodded as she once more led Sally across the room to where Mona and Peter were looking at the tank where Paul came to recharge.  
  
"That's bad, very bad, isn't it?" Susan asked. She couldn't stand to get to close to it. She wasn't sure exactly what that thing was but she could feel the dark magic, something like she had never felt before.  
  
"Paul has to go there to recharge his powers," Mary said, glancing around to make sure that the mere mention of his name hadn't brought the vampire boy into their presence.  
  
Mona frowned at the mention of that awful boy's name before looking from the tank over to the axe on the wall. If Paul had to recharge, did that mean he was kind of like a battery used for something even worse? But what could be worse that him? Mona didn't think she could even imagine what something worse than that boy could be. She slowly crossed the room and tugged at the axe.  
  
"What's she doing?" Peter asked Mary curiously. He wasn't entirely sure of the situation with Mona. Even when he had been unable to speak in the New Kingdom, he could function fine here but for some reason,  
that didn't seem to hold true in Mona's case.  
  
Mary walked over to her friend, watching as Mona finally tugged the axe lose and then gestured back towards the tank. "I think she wants to see if we can break the tank," Mary said after a moment. Breaking the tank? Could something like that work? She shook her head as she and Mona joined the others once more. It sounded like something that should work but was it maybe such a simple idea that it wouldn't?  
  
"Well, we'll never know unless we give it a shot." Peter motioned for Mona to hand over the axe, what he believed the little girl was thinking slowly sinking in. If Paul had to recharge in this thing, that would make him like some sort of battery. Break the recharger and then when the battery ran down, it would be dead.  
  
"Do we have time for this?" Susan asked, glancing around the room as she spoke, barely able to keep from visibly shivering.  
  
"If it might stop Paul we'll have to make time," Peter said as he slowly circled the tank with the girls following trying to see if there was a place that might be better to strike a blow. He looked with concern over at Sally, standing there staring off seemingly into nothingness. He was going to have to ask Mary some questions about that when they got out of here. Sally obviously knew more about this place than even she realized and Mary had to know even more.  
  
"Wait." Susan suddenly straightened, forcing herself to pull her nerves together once more. She closed her eyes for a moment. There was something, something moving towards.... Her eyes shot open and she darted across the room, throwing her arm up in front of Sally's face just as Gottreich appeared out of nowhere, one of the ice picks heading for Sally's head.  
  
Sally's eyes moved from the ice pick, knocked out of Gottreich's hand by Susan's blocking move, to Gottreich's face. Memories, memories were coming back now, racing towards her at the speed of light. That face looming above her, something being pressed over her nose and mouth, the ice pick.... She closed her eyes, wanting to force it away but at the same time knowing that she had to remember after all of these years.  
  
"Find the bell fast!" Susan shouted as she dove for the ice pick,  
Gottreich right after her, the second pick swinging over her head and barely missing. She chanced a glance up at Sally, who was standing still paralyzed in shock. If Gottreich thought to turn and go after her.  
Susan's hand groped on the floor, finally seizing the ice pick and swinging it up, blocking a second swing from Gottreich.  
  
Sally blinked, forcing her mind back to the present situation as she heard the clang of rusted metal on metal. She shook her head to try to clear it, only partially succeeding as she looked at Susan struggling against Gottreich, Mary and the others staring helplessly not sure of what to do. Sally felt herself crossing the floor in a daze, not quite understanding what she was about to do but at the same time knowing that she had to end this. End it like she had so many years before? Why did that thought come to mind?  
  
She reached out, taking the axe from Peter's unresisting hand,  
slowly lifting it. It felt as if her mind was detached from her body,  
watching both the current scene and something older, a little girl with the same axe years ago. This time as she swung, though, instead of the sound like that of fruit hitting the floor, there was a shattering noise.  
Suddenly Sally's mind and body felt joined again and she stared in shook at the axe buried not in Gottreich's head but in the glass of the tank. She backed away followed by Mary, Mona and Peter as the tank started to shake and seconds later, burst open, a bright green light shooting up, smashing into the ceiling as the building begin to shake.  
  
"I don't think that's good," Mary whispered. 


	31. chapter 31

Louis was frantically searching the crowd for Elmer now, not really expecting to find him but not wanting to give up the tiny hope he was trying to cling to either. He shot a look towards the hospital entrance and the patients still exiting. No Elmer and no way for him to get back in through the masses either. He looked up at the building, barely able to suppress a shudder as it trembled once more. This couldn't be happening. He thought that the worst thing that could have happened had occurred almost five years before with the death of his first son but now.... No, just let Elmer come out of this, let him turn up somewhere safe and sound and Louis swore that he would forgive him anything, would forget that that little incident with the head ever occurred. Anything as long as his son was safe. Lona, he was never going to forgive her for getting Elmer into the middle of this. She was the only reason that Elmer would stay in the hospital under these conditions, he was sure of that.  
  
Eleanor looked up at the hospital, shaking her head as she stalked over to her nephew, Blondi and the wolf trailing behind her.  
  
"Aunt Eleanor, did you hear about the record we just set for evacuating a building during a fire safety drill?" Jesse said with a smile as his aunt approached. Oh, this was going to be a very, very good thing for Kingdom Hospital and for his leadership!  
  
"Might I point out that the hospital isn't evacuated yet?" Eleanor doubted she would be able to snap Jesse back to reality but she felt she really had to try for some reason. "For some reason, it's a bit difficult to move the patients in Intensive Care on a moment's notice. I believe Anne said something about killing them or some such."  
  
"She's the potion mistress, right? I thought that she could put a stopper on death," Jesse said quietly, hoping that no one had heard anything that his aunt had said that might imply there was something amiss in the hospital. Fire safety drill, that was absolutely all that this was.  
  
"Putting a stopper on death takes two years to brew and requires ingredients from several animals that occasionally amuse themselves committing mass suicide. I wouldn't count on any of that to help this situation." Eleanor said with a shake of her head. "And it seems that several of your staff are currently trapped in the basement along with my defense teacher and students. This dog said that he saw a Dr. Hook and a Dr. Draper heading for the basement along with several patients and my students."  
  
"Hook and Dr. Draper?" Jesse looked around the parking lot for a moment, scanning the faces as best he could in the growing darkness. "No, they couldn't be in the basement! Attendance at the fire safety drill is mandatory, you know. If they skipped it, well, what would they do if there ever was a real fire? Not that there's any danger of that! Kingdom Hospital is perfectly sound!"  
  
"That isn't quite the word I would use," Eleanor murmured as the building shook once more, the hospital logo shuddering and starting to slowly crawl down the side of the building as a green light suddenly shot up from inside, apparently blasting a hole in the roof.  
  
"Dr. James!" No, no, no! This wasn't happening! Louis raced across the parking lot, not letting himself look up at the apparently exploding building. "My son is still in there!"  
  
Before Jesse could say anything, he suddenly heard a loud gasp and turned to find Renee Klingerman standing there, her eyes moving from the bright light shooting into the sky to the growing crowd of people, her expression one of shock.  
  
"Louis, I'm sure Elmer's perfectly fine," Jesse said as he hurried over to Mrs. Klingerman. She was already suing Steg. He certainly didn't want her to get any ideas about suing the hospital as well. "Mrs. Klingerman, how nice to see you!"  
  
"What is happening here?" Renee asked as she turned on Jesse with an angry glare. This hospital, she just couldn't believe how badly this hospital had messed things up and continued to mess things up. Suddenly she noticed something, her daughter, were was.... "Where's Mona?!"  
  
"Little Mona's feeling much better." Brenda wondered over,  
unnoticed until she spoke, a vague expression on her face as if her brain had suddenly take off for Pluto and left her body behind to manage as best it could. "She did the cleverest thing. She had this stick and she turned Steg into an ass. Very, very clever little girl, Mona." As she spoke, Brenda turned, glancing across the parking lot and apparently spotting something that only she could see. With a giggle, she drifted away once more.  
  
"I'm afraid she isn't quite well right now," Jesse said as he reached out and took Renee's arm, trying to steer her away from the building and definitely far away from Brenda in case she decided to wander back. "I do understand that little Mona is feeling much better though. Why don't you come right over here and let me tell you all about it?"  
  
"Dr. James, the hospital is exploding!" Louis stalked over, moving in front of Jesse to get his attention. He could feel his eyes starting to sting. No, this couldn't be happening. He couldn't lose his only remaining child!  
  
"No, the hospital isn't exploding! Don't be silly!" Jesse chuckled nervously as he glanced over at Renee to see if she might be paying attention to what Louis was saying. "This is just.... The fireworks display. To celebrate our achievement in fire safety!" Yes,  
that was it. Just fireworks. He smiled as a dragon drifted into sight.  
Everything was perfectly fine at Kingdom Hospital.  
  
"You might want to start passing around a hat to gather money to get rid of those. My son bought them from a couple of boys in England." A dark haired woman in cheery pink robes whispered as she herded a group of children past Jesse and further away from the building. "And for more money, they'll send you the instructions on banishing them too. Their mother must be so proud."  
  
Renee shook her head as she looked from the building to the crowd and then to the two doctors standing there. She didn't know quite what was going on and she wasn't sure that she wanted to know. She just wanted to find her daughter now. This was it, she was going to take Mona home. Okay, she had problems but they could deal with that later. She wasn't leaving her daughter in this hospital for one moment longer!  
  
"Mona!" she called, although she knew her daughter couldn't respond to her. "Mona?" She moved away from Jesse, pushing through the crowd in pursuit of the group of children that had just passed. Surely Mona was with them.  
  
Louis glared at Dr. James for a moment before turning and heading towards the building, his face set. He had to find his son. He couldn't lose Elmer too, not after losing Edgar, Emma.... He pushed through the doors, barely able to move against the current of people still hurrying out. Finally after narrowly avoiding being trampled what felt like a million times, he pulled the stair doors opened and started down, having to resist running, sure he would pitch head first down the steps if he did.  
  
"Elmer!" he called, a slight panic in his voice as he saw a bright light seeping under the stairwell door leading to the basement. Was there a fire or.... "No, Elmer!"  
  
"You don't want to go through there," the dark skinned ghost suddenly slid through the door, appearing in front of the startled Louis. Her dress was no longer a Victorian style but a short, pink flapper dress, colorful beads around her neck and a hat with a large feather on her head. What was even more surprising, however, was that parts of her body appeared to have vanished. One elbow was missing along with several fingers on the opposite hand and part of a lower leg.  
  
"As you can see, it isn't the safest," Lucretzia said with a hollow laugh gesturing towards her missing parts before motioning for Louis to go up the stairs once more, pushing him forward with a rush of cold air when he didn't move.  
  
"Lucy, what happened to you?" Eleanor said as she spotted the ghost and hurried over, worry on her face even as her colleague frowned at the nickname.  
  
"I tried to get through that energy field. Let's just say it wasn't a smashing success," the ghost said as she looked back at the building with worry. "Eleanor, it's getting worse down there. If Michael and the others aren't able to get this under control in the next few minutes, there's no way the hospital's going to survive and most of the town will go with it." 


	32. chapter 32

Antubis moved in front of Lona as Paul approached, the children backing away as well, definately sensing that this boy was extremely dangerous. The anteater growled, showing his own fangs, one claw slicing through the air in Paul's direction making him back up a bit momentarily.  
A moment later Paul moved forward once more, reassured by the thought that there was no way that Antubis would be able to protect everyone. The blasted creature couldn't be that powerful.  
  
"So, still trying to protect the kiddies? Don't you ever get tired of being a giant, furry babysitter?" Paul said with a smirk as he fired a blast over their heads, grinning as he saw Lona twitch at the noise and then moan in pain. This was going to be fun. Suddenly he stopped when he realized that there was someone missing and looked around curiously. "So,  
where's the loser? Did he finally get wise and decide to dump her and the brat?"  
  
Antubis growled but didn't speak, moving to try to block Lona's view of Paul as the boy paced in front of them. He cautiously sniffed the air. The slight smell of smoke from the fire was starting to fade but the metalic smell of blood was increasing at the same time.  
  
"Don't see what he sees in her anyway, just some washed up old hag," Paul said, laughing as he spoke. "The way he keeps following her around like some sort of little puppy with how she treats him, totally pathetic! And that baby, I'm doing him a favor by getting rid of the brat!"  
  
Lona struggled to focus on what was going on. Everything seemed blurry and the sounds all far away but she could hear some of what Paul was saying, enough to confuse her. "I don't," Her voice was weak and it took all of her strength to speak. "I don't treat Elmer badly." Okay, she had rejected his attempts at seduction fairly firmly but that didn't mean she treated him badly. If she was treating him badly, Elmer wouldn't have continued to pursue her, would he?  
  
"So what did you do when his mother died then, sweetie?" Paul said with a chuckle as he fired another blast over Lona and Antubis's head,  
almost hitting them this time. This was fun but where in the world was the loser? Paul wanted him here to see when that brat to be and the woman died. Now seeing the expression on his face as he watched that would be priceless.  
  
Elmer eased away from the wall, anger building with every word Paul was saying and at the sight of Lona's face as those words hit her. All he wanted was to rush to her, to comfort her and let her know that what that boy was saying wasn't true but he didn't dare reveal himself, not if there was a chance he could get the boy away from Lona long enough for the anteater to get her to safety. He felt himself starting to hyperventilate slightly at the sight of her pale face, the expression in her eyes at the boy's words. No, he wasn't letting that boy hurt her anymore!  
  
"Leave her alone!" Elmer pushed his way clear of the children,  
snagging Paul and throwing him up against the wall, his anger giving him strength that he didn't know that he had. He lost everyone he cared about and there had been nothing that he could do to help, to save his mother,  
his brother. He wasn't letting this boy take Lona and their baby away from him, not while he was still alive to prevent it.  
  
Paul growled as he felt a fist slam into his face, his hands going out and grabbing for Elmer's neck, trying to choke him to force him away long enough to generate a blast and finish this. He had intended to let him live, to let him suffer with yet another loss but now....  
  
"Thought you got wise and dumped her and the brat," Paul forced out with a smirk as he shoved Elmer away, firing a blast of white energy that barely missed him and almost hit a couple of the children. "Should have known a loser like you wouldn't have the smarts to do that though.  
You like the way she treats you, loser? You know she thinks that you're a...."  
  
"Leave her alone!" Elmer lunged at the boy again, sending him smashing back into the wall once more, the memory of Lona lifeless in his arms washing over him as he hit Paul once more. "I love her!"  
  
Love? It was getting hard to hear clearly, to see clearly, but that one word got through to Lona's adled brain. Did Elmer really say that he loved her? She shook her head slowly. How could he say that, could he really understand what it meant at his age, what true love was?  
  
'Looks like he understands a little, doesn't it?' Antubis said gently as he looked down at Lona for a moment before growling at the nearby children. 'Go! Get out of here now!' Honestly, that dye really had to have killed off some brain cells if they didn't have enough sense to run while they could. As the children started to move once more, Antubis looked up for a moment at Elmer, struggling to pin Paul against the wall before turning to the matter of Lona Somehow, he didn't think dragging her like he dragged Peter was the best idea.  
  
"Elmer?" Lona whispered as she felt something touching her. Her vision was almost gone now, a bright white light all that she could see.  
Her hand twitched as se struggled to reach out for something, anything, as suddenly she felt the pains changing slightly, her body beginning to push involuntarily with the pain.  
  
Lona's eyes widened as she realized what was happening, one hand moving to her stomach as she felt her body begin to push again and this time she had to push with it. "Elmer!!" No, this couldn't be happening,  
not now! This baby couldn't be about to be born under a mill that burned over a hundred years ago!  
  
Elmer turned at the sound of Lona's scream, a momentary distraction but just enough for Paul to take advantage of. He shoved the young doctor away from him once more, firing a blast of white energy at him that caught Elmer in the shoulder as he crashed to the ground, his head slamming back hard against the wall as he fell.  
  
"I did intend to let you live, you know," Paul said as he walked over casually, wiping blood away from his shattered nose as if it was nothing. His hands were glowing with energy now. "You just had to keep getting in my way though. Looks like you'll be going before your brat now!" 


	33. chapter 33

"Professor," Breanna was on her knees now, a bright orange glow wrapped around her body as the rest of the mill filled with a blue light.  
"Professor, I don't think I can hold this any longer." she whispered as she trembled with the strain.  
  
"Then let it out, let it go up." Michael spoke calmly but he was also showing the strain of combatting the fire as various body parts flickered in and out of view.  
  
Breanna bit her lip, reluctant to release the built up power even though it was causing such a tremendous strain. She just didn't want to hurt anyone. There was no choice though, as she felt the force building,  
seeking a way out. A moment later, a bright orange beam of energy slammed into the ceiling of the mill, smashing it's way through as the girl slumped down, letting the power drain away from her.  
  
"Let's go," Michael waved a hand, helping Breanna to her feet,  
parts of the roof starting to fall in around them as they staggered towards the tunnel entrance, the ghost swaying slighly as one leg abruptly diasppeared.  
  
"I've got you, Professor," Breanna said softly as she reached out,  
somehow steadying the insubstantial form a bit as they started down. Now if all of the children had just managed to escape.  
  
Lona moaned, not really able to focus on anything now but the pains and the urge to push, an urge she couldn't fight. "Elmer, get over here now!" she screamed as another pain hit. She couldn't believe it but she could feel the baby moving downward, preparing to be born. "Elmer!"  
  
The sound of Lona screaming for him snapped Elmer out of the daze smacking into the wall had left him in and he was able to dodge just as Paul's blast of energy smacked into the wall where his head had been. He looked over towards Lona, his eyes widening as he realized what was happening, that their baby was about to be born and....  
  
"Looks like you might get to live a few more minutes after all,"  
Paul said with a smirk as he noticed what Elmer was looking at and turned his focus onto Lona and the baby once more. His hands started to glow with energy again, rapidly building the blast this time. Didn't look like there was much time to finish them off but better late than never, he supposed.  
  
"No!!" Elmer was suddenly there again, knocking him back, keeping him from releasing the blast. Paul growled as they slammed into the floor and rolled, seeking a hold, trying to best the other  
  
"Suicidal like your freak of a brother, aren't you?" Paul growled as he grabbed at Elmer's scorched shoulder, tearing at the injured flesh.  
  
Elmer didn't say anything but the flash of pain in his eyes at the mention of his brother said more than words possibly could. He bit his lip, fighting back a scream of pain as the boy's fingers tore at his shoulder. He forced Paul back, trying to pin him against the wall, as he shot aa look over at Antubis. "Get her out of here now!"  
  
'Don't think that's a good idea at the moment.' The large anteater looked from Lona to Elmer with definate concern. How long could he possibly hold Paul off? Granted, he did have a good bit of anger at the boy that ought to help out but still.... Then there was the matter of the baby. That child was definately coming now and although Antubis did know about babies being born, he wasn't so sure about how to manage it with several inch long claws.  
  
Paul seized his opportunity when Elmer glanced over at Lona, as his head was turned knocking him back and sinking his fangs into his neck,  
gropping for the artery, trying to bite into it and tear it out.  
Elmer screamed as they fell to the ground, rolling once more with Paul's fangs buried in his neck. He could feel a warm feeling running down his neck as a wave of dizziness washed over him. No, he couldn't die! Not with Lona about to have the baby! She needed him!  
  
"Oh, my...." Just then Hook and the others came pushing through the crowd of fleeing children, stopping in shock at the sight of Elmer struggling against Paul, blood pouring down his neck as he fought the boy.  
"Go! Get out of here now!" Hook shouted at the children,  
motioning for them to run while they could as he hurried to his younger colleague's aid with Aubrey following him with her wand out.  
  
"Christa, Abel, go with them and make sure they get out," Chris said as she headed for Lona and Antubis, with Natalie following her.  
  
"Lona?" Chris's eyes widened as she knelt down beside her and realized how far things had progressed, that she was starting to push. She took a deep breath, trying to calm herself slightly but it wasn't very sucessful. She knew that they had covered delivering babies in med school but that didn't mean that she remembered very much about it!  
  
'You just catch,' Antubis said with a slight snicker as he glanced at Chris. 'So, were you doing naughty things and missed learning about that too? My, my, my, aren't there a lot of people here who seem to like doing naughty things.'  
  
Chris glared at the anteater for a moment before turning her attention back to Lona, looking around the tunnel as she did so. This didn't seem like the best place in the world for a baby to be born to say the least but Chris didn't see any way they could move her at this point.  
  
Lona blinked as the pain eased momentarily, trying to force her vision to clear. Elmer, where in the world was he? She could hear crashing sounds somewhere but she couldn't see clearly more than an inch or two beyond her face. "Elmer!" She screamed his name again as the pain hit once more and she felt herself pushing.  
  
Chris looked over at Elmer, still struggling with Paul as Hook and Aubrey tried to help. All of that blood running down his neck, that just didn't look like a good sign at all. If Lona saw that.... Chris moved slightly, blocking Lona's view just in case. "It's going to be okay.  
Everything's going to be just fine." Okay, she kind of had her doubts on that score but telling Lona that certainly wouldn't help the situation.  
  
Aubey stood hesitently, trying to figure out what in the world she could do to help as Hook struggled to pull Paul off of Elmer. If he pulled that boy the wrong way, it might end up doing even worse damage. There had to be a way to make him let go but.... "Get back!" Aubrey called as she raised her want, the same blue flames that Mona had created earlier shooting out of the tip and smashing into Paul's back as Hook jerked back.  
  
Paul screamed, his fangs retracting from Elmer's neck as he rolled,  
trying to beat the flames scorching his ghostly flesh out. "You'll pay for that," he growled though his pain as he struggled to his feet, starting towards the girl even as he continued to smoulder. As he moved, he staggered, the last of his energy slipping away. With disgust, he realized that he would have to retreat back to the tank to recharge. "I'll be back!" He screamed as he disappeared. "You'll all pay for this!"  
  
"Lona?" Elmer struggled to pull himself to his feet as Paul vanished, dizziness growing with every movement but determination keeping him moving. Their baby was coming, he had to be there to help Lona, to comfort her. He had promised that he would take care of her and the baby and he had to be there to do that.  
  
"Elmer, I think you need to stay still right now," Hook said as he reached out, steadying Elmer and trying to ease him back to the ground once more. His eyes widened with concern as he saw the amount of blood now soaking into Elmer's shirt and continuing to run down his neck along with the scorched, torn flesh of his shoulder. Not good, not good at all. If they weren't able to do something fast, they could very well lose both of them. 


	34. chapter 34

As the green light shooting up from the broken tank faded away,  
Gottreich seized the opportunity to take another swing at Susan, the closest one to him, with the ice pick.  
  
"Mary, find that bell fast!" Peter yelled as he hurried to the younger girl's aid, grabbing at Gottreich and trying to pull him back. For an older man, though, he was deceiptively strong, unnaturally strong.  
Mary looked over at Mrs. Druse, standing there staring at the axe sticking out of the ruptured tank, her mind lost in memories from over sixty years ago. Mary reached out, taking Sally's hand and drawing her back to the current situation once more.  
  
"I remember," she whispered, shaking her head slowly as she looked from Gottreich to Mary. Was this her fault? Was everything that had happened since the second fire her fault because she had been the one who had swung the axe, who had killed.... She shook her head frantically now as she remembered. She had just been a little girl. How could she have killed someone?  
  
"It wasn't your fault." Mary said gently. "Dr. Gottreich hurt you, remember? He hurt lots and lots of people and he would have hurt even more if he could have. If it was anyone's fault, it was his. He could have been good and helped people but he just wanted to hurt them. Will you help us find the second bell now? Please?"  
  
Sally slowly nodded, her mind still halfway lost in her returned memories as she let Mary lead her around the tank to join Mona. As she approached the tank, she felt something tugging at the edge of her senses,  
drawing her away from the painful memories.  
  
"It's here, Gottreich was using the bell somehow in his experiments," Sally said slowly as she reached out, hesitently touching the tank, repulsed at the evil feeling of it but at the same time now that the thing was broken able to sense something very different hidden underneath the layers of evil.  
  
Mary touched the tank herself, surprised to feel something different now after over sixty years of feeling the same evil energy coming from the object. She could feel what Sally was detecting though, somewhere connected to the tank. But where could it be? Mary stood on her tiptoes,  
reaching carefully through the shattered glass to try to feel around inside. Surely the bell couldn't have been actually inside the tank with Paul all of this time. If it was, though, he better not have scratched it or banged it. He thought it was funny to mess things up.  
  
As Mary and Sally searched inside the tank, Mona stood still, her head slightly tilted as if she was listening to something. The little girl glanced around the room in puzzlement. There was something, like someone laughing, the sound somehow reminding Mona of springtime. Her eyes drifted downward as she tried to follow the sound, to find who would be laughing in such a horrible place. She knelt down, the liquid draining from the tank soaking the hem of her hospital gown as she stretched out her hand,  
reaching for something that she really wasn't sure of yet.  
  
Suddenly her fingers brushed against something, cool to the touch and at the same time warm, sending a tingle of electricity up her fingers as the soft laughter grew louder. Mona stretched her hand out a bit more,  
wrapping her fingers around the object, the faint markings almost daring her to try to read as she touched them. Suddenly, she felt someone there with her, someone she couldn't really see physically but who was there all the same.  
  
Tell Antubis it wasn't his fault," a soft voice whispered in her ear as Mona pulled he object free, looking down to see that it was the bell. Mona stood slowly with the bell in her hands, drying it as best she could before reaching out and grasping the silk cord and raising it,  
starting to slide it around her neck. As the bell slipped into place, Mona thought she could feel small hands touching her, gently arranging the bell.  
  
Mona touched the bell carefully, not sure exactly of what to do with it only to see it suddenly sway as if another hand was touching it as well, a soft ringing sound filling the air.  
  
"Mona?" Mary said softly as she looked at her friend, her eyes widening at the sight of the bell gently swaying. A moment later, Mary slowly smiled, reaching out and pulling the material Mona had stuffed her bell with free and gently starting to ring it as well.  
  
Mary reached out, taking Mona's hand as they crossed the room, the soft laughter following beside them as if an invisible figure was dancing next to them. As they approached Gottreich, who Susan and Peter were still fighting to restrain somehow, the two little girls glanced over at each other before reaching out as one, touching Gottreich with both bells at once.  
  
Susan jumped back followed a moment later by Peter as Gottreich suddenly gave a shudder, as if something inside of him had broken. As they watched, cracks started to appear in his flesh, slowly at first and then faster as parts of his body started to fall away, crumbling into dust before they hit the floor.  
  
"Mary?" Peter said slowly a minute later as he looked up from the large pile of dust that now stood where Gottreich had been.  
  
"We found the bell," Mary said with a smile as she looked over at Mona, giving the bell a soft ring at the same time. There was something different now, her bell felt different. Before she had used it to call to the dying, to try to guide them to peace, something that was good and yet sad at the same time. Now all she could feel from the bell was happiness,  
though. And there was that sound of laughter, like a very small child laughing.  
  
"Let's go get the others," Mary said as she started for the door holding on to Mona's hand. "They should be finished by now so we can go home." She just hoped that Dr. Lona hadn't had her baby yet. 


	35. chapter 35

Mary had just started out the door of the Pain Room when suddenly Paul appeared in front of her, causing her to automatically jump back.  
Although they had just defeated Dr. Gottreich and Mary knew deep down that she had no reason to fear Paul anymore, he response upon seeing him was pretty much automatic after all this time.  
  
Paul growled at the sight of the little girl and her pals. Bad enough that he hadn't managed to dispose of the loser's baby and the hag but now to have to deal with this brat as well.... He advanced on Mary with his fangs flashing. He was sure that he had enough energy left to get rid of the little pest once and for all even if he couldn't do anything else. And, he thought with a smirk, if anything happened to the brat it would devastate the anteater. That would pay him back nicely for getting in his way and trying to protect that baby and the hag.  
  
Suddenly he heard a bell ringing, the sound of soft childish laughter echoing in each peal. With another growl, Paul looked angrily around the room to see which one of the brats was daring to laugh at him. If they thought that he was going to let them laugh at him then those twerps had another thing coming!  
  
Mary found herself giggling at the expression of anger on Paul's face. She reached out and started to ring her bell gently as well in time with the ringing of Mona's bell, her fears of Paul fading away with the sounding of the bells. She felt herself giggling again. Why in the world had she let him scare her in the first place?  
  
"Stop that, you little brat!" Paul yelled at the sound of Mary giggling at him. How dare that brat laugh at him! He was the one who was supposed to laugh at other people!  
  
"Go away, Paul." Mary said softly between giggles. She stopped ringing the bell for a moment and waved her hand towards the pile of dust that had formally been Dr. Gottreich. "Dr. Gottreich is gone!"  
  
"Yeah, so you better go away now before someone hits you with a bell too!" Susan said, joining in with the girls in laughing as Mona gleefully waved her hand towards the now smashed tank, making sure Paul noticed it was gone.  
  
Paul shoved past the girls, staring in slowly growing horror at the shattered tank. "What did you brats do?!" He shouted as he rounded on the two girls, his energy rapidly fading now. Paul looked at the tank once more, feeling something foreign to him, fright. He suddenly felt his knees buckling as the last of his energy slipped away, the floor rushing up to meet him. No! This couldn't be happening, not to him! He was too powerful! Too....  
  
"You really should have been nicer, you know." Mary said gently as she approached Paul ringing her bell once more. "It's time for you to go now, Paul."  
  
No. Paul tried to block out the sound of that blasted bell,  
knowing what was going to happen now. No, he wouldn't let that blasted brat take him, send him into the light!  
  
What happened?" Suddenly Paul vanished, causing the group to jump back in surprise. Peter looked over at Mary with a slight bit of worry.  
The boy didn't seem like he was in any condition to be a threat but they didn't need to take chances, not when they were so close to success.  
  
"I don't know," Mary whispered as she looked with concern at where Paul had fallen and then vanished. What had happened with Paul had felt different than what had happened before when she had called people with her bell but... The bell felt different now though, so maybe she had called Paul to cross over after all. She hopes so. Okay, Paul had taken great delight in tormenting her and hurting people but still, she hoped he had been able to cross into the light and find peace. Maybe he would be happier there, away from Dr. Gottreich.  
  
Suddenly Mona tugged at her arm, motioning towards the door. Mary forced herself to snap out of her thinking on what might have happened to Paul and back to the present situation.  
  
"Come on," she said as they started out the door and down the hallway, both girls ringing their bells as they walked. She really, really hoped that they hadn't missed Dr. Lona having her baby. And wasn't Elmer's father going to be so surprised to find out that he was a grandfather. Mary started to softly giggle just thinking about that reaction. 


	36. chapter 36

Louis looked up at the hospital in dispair, shaking his head as he saw bright orange flames bursting out of the roof. This, how could this have happened so quickly? "Dr. James, please!" Louis knew that it would do no good, that the hospital administrator was in total denial about what was going on, but he had to try. He couldn't just give up on his son without trying to save him. "My son...." He shook his head, looking up at the building once more. Had he told Elmer how much he loved him that day, how proud he was of him or had he just.... He felt tears starting to sting at his eyes as he thought of it, of how he was making the same mistakes with Elmer that he had made with Edgar and now it would end the same way, with a deep, dark hole in the ground. "Please, my son! You can't just leave him in there to...."  
  
"I will certainly be having a word with Elmer when I see him for skipping the fire safety drill!" Jesse said with a firm shake of his head. "Why, how will he know what to do should there ever be a real fire if he doesn't attend the drill? Not that there's any danger of that, of course. Kingdom Hospital is perfectly sound!"  
  
"There are flames shooting out of the roof. Sound isn't the word I would use," Louis murmured, his heart feeling as if it might explode at any moment as he watched the flames. He pushed the pain down, willing himself to ignore it. What would it matter if he had a heart attack now anyway with both of his sons, with Emma, gone?  
  
"Try not to worry too much," Otto said quietly as he came over to Louis, looking up with a slightly nervous expression at the building as he spoke. Everyone except possibly Dr. James the Clueless knew how losing his older son had almost killed Louis. If something happened to Elmer would he even survive? As he thought this, he looked over at Louis, sadly shaking his head.  
"Otto, are you absolutely sure that Elmer was in the basement?"  
Louis said, hoping against hope that by some miracle Otto might have realized he had made a mistake.  
  
"Yes, in the sleep lab. He wanted me to page Dr. Hook down there."  
Otto said slowly as he tried to recall something. There was something about that situation that he really should remember.  
  
"The sleep lab. When I see Lona, putting my son in danger to...."  
Louis muttered under his breath.  
  
"Lona! That's it!" Otto exclaimed. "When Elmer was talking to me I heard someone screaming in the background! It was Dr. Massingale!"  
  
"What?" Louis felt his anger at Lona fade a tiny bit at this news.  
"Wait, what sort of screaming, like she was mad at Elmer or..."  
  
"Like she was hurt." Otto said slowly, "Hurt badly."  
  
Louis shook his head, the anger fading more rapidly now. If Lona had been hurt in one of the earthquakes, of course Elmer would still be in there trying to take care of her. How could he be mad at Lona for being injured? All the same though, he just wanted his son back, wanted him returned to him safe and sound.  
  
"Dr. James," Louis started over towards the hospital head again.  
If his son was still in there doing his job as a doctor, trying to help Lona, then how could he do less and let himself give in to despair without trying everything humanly possible to save them? Well, okay, everything humanly and inhumanly possible, he thought with a glance at the ghost now sitting on the hood of Stegman's car trying to pull her vanished body parts back together. "There has got to be a way into that basement! My son is in there and Otto just told me that it sounded like Lona might be hurt somehow!"  
  
"I'm willing to give it another go," Lucretzia said as she slid off the hood of the car. She was still missing a few fingers and that lower leg didn't feel altogether intact but she was sure she could manage. "Eleanor?"  
  
Eleanor looked from the building to the people in the parking lot.  
Obviously going in wasn't the best idea but at the same time if something didn't happen fast to stop this, then who knows how many could die? If only there were some way to contact Michael or the girls, to find out exactly what the situation was inside.  
  
"What about the tunnels? Maybe there's one of them that isn't blocked?" A dark-haired woman in violet robes with light blue flowers trimming the edges moved over to join them, the wolf at her heels and Blondi not far behind. "I've got a call in for assistance but who knows when that will get here. Bad potion at a big party down in Salem. You don't want to know what they're hallucinating there." she said with a shake of her head.  
  
"Lucy, do you know if there might be another way in?" Eleanor said as she looked back at the hospital momentarily.  
  
"Maybe," the ghost said slowly as she considered the situation.  
Her memories of the tunnels beneath the hospital, the parts of the Old Kingdom, were ancient yet at the same time almost felt like they had been made the day before. "If I could get down there I would probably be able to tell more." Suddenly she stopped speaking, tilting her head to one side as if listening for something. "Do you hear a bell?"  
"That's just the elevator...." Jesse started to issue the standard hospital bell cover-up story but was stopped cold by a glance from his aunt.  
"Not a bell," Eleanor said slowly as she listened, a smile starting to take shape on her face. "Two bells. Mary." One of the bells had to be Mary's bell. Did that mean that after so long Michael had finally been able to find his lost sister. She felt tears of happiness starting to pool in her eyes at that thought. Suddenly she felt a peal of laughter slipping out as the sound of the bells ringing grew, washing over the parking lot, carrying with it the faint sound of childish laughter and the wonderful happiness of springtime. 


	37. chapter 37

"No." Elmer felt himself swaying slightly but he willed himself to stay on his feet as Hook tried to get him back to the ground once more.  
Their baby was coming! He had to be there with Lona to help her!  
  
"Elmer." Hook looked worriedly at Elmer's neck and shoulder, the blood still pouring from the wounds. He didn't think the bite had hit the artery but even if it had missed that, there were still other things,  
damage that could kill just as easily.  
  
'Bring him over here,' Antubis said as he looked over at Elmer for a moment before turning his attention once more to Lona, his long tongue reaching out, gently licking at her hands as she moaned in pain and pushed once more. He could slow the bleeding somewhat that way but in order to stop it he would need to get at the source of the bloodflow. Somehow he didn't think that was something that would go over very well with the humans though.  
  
"Lona?" Elmer reached out, taking her hand, lifting her head and shoulders so he could cradle her propped up against his chest as soon as Hook helped him ease to the ground beside her. He pushed a wave of dizziness away as he stared down into her pale face, fright almost overcoming him as he looked at her. She was so pale, almost too pale, her skin practically translucent, beads of sweat dotting her forehead as she struggled to push again with the next pain. How much more of this could she take? Elmer looked up at Hook with frightened eyes, begging wordlessly for him to do something to help.  
  
"How do we get out of here?" Hook demanded of Antubis as the giant creature finished licking Elmer's neck clean. He didn't know what the anteater had done but at least whatever it was had stopped the bleeding,  
one less thing to worry about anyway. He dropped down by Chris, looking worriedly at Lona. She was loosing way too much blood. They needed to get her back to their Kingdom but even there he wasn't really sure if they would be able to save her life at this point.  
  
"Elmer?" Lona whispered as the pain temporarily eased and she started up into his face. At least she could see him clearly, about the only thing that she could see at this point. So young, he was just so young. Another pain started and she moaned, pushing, as another fear suddenly arose. The baby, what if something was wrong with the baby? She wasn't so young anymore and.... If something was wrong with their baby,  
how long would Elmer be okay with being tied down, with being bound to a sick child when he was so young and could find someone else, could have healthy children?  
  
"It's okay. I promise everything's going to be okay." Elmer didn't know what had suddenly caused Lona to be so frightened but whatever it was, he would do anything to reassure her that he would fix it for her.  
He gently kissed her forehead, blocking out everything else but Lona. She was the only important thing now, her and their baby. "I love you," he suddenly, impulsively whispered in her ear. He wasn't sure how she would take that but she was having his baby, really what would be a better time to tell her how he felt?  
  
Antubis looked from Lona and Elmer back to Hook before suddenly tilting his head up, a faint sound brushing his ears, something that he hadn't heard for over two hundred years.  
  
'The bells," the anteater whispered softly. Although Mary and the others had gone in search of the second bell, he hadn't really let himself think that they might actually be able to recover it, not after so long,  
not after all that had happened for people to take those bells. There it was though, the sound growing louder with each passing moment. 'Looks like we might be going home now. Hope no one wanted to take a break to do any naughty things first.' As he spoke, Antubis shot a pointed look at Elmer and then Hook just as the tunnel started to blur, spinning slightly before the familiar surroundings of the sleep lab took shape.  
  
"We got it! We got it!" Mary called as she darted over, wrapping her arms around Antubis with a huge smile as she motioned towards Mona and the bell hanging from a silk cord around the other girl's neck. "And Dr.  
Gottreich got turned into dust and Paul.... I'm not sure where he went.  
He might have crossed over like he should have." She frowned as she thought of Paul before her eyes settled on Lona. She hadn't missed the baby being born after all. She was so afraid that she would. Mary released Antubis and dropped down next to Lona and Elmer, automatically reaching out and gently touching her face, trying to heal her as best she could.  
  
Chris looked up at Hook with worry in her eyes still although they were back in their Kingdom. Lona was loosing way too much blood and at this point, Chris wasn't sure if she would have enough strength do deliver the baby. Of course there were few other options at this point. A cesarean would surely kill Lona in her condition.  
  
"What's wrong?" Michael asked in a concerned tone as he came in supported still by Breanna, Abel and Christa trailing after them.  
"Is the hall still blocked?" Hook hurried over, speaking quietly although he thought that Elmer and Lona were in their own world at this point.  
"Unfortunately, yes, but I have some vague hopes that my colleagues might be along soon to do something about that," Michael said as he looked over at Lona. Her skin was deathly, almost ghostly pale, now and that blood, too much blood.  
Hook slammed a fist into his open hand, frustration apparent. They were in a hospital, how could they be in a hospital and still not be able to do anything to save Lona and.... Just then something occured to him.  
"The morgue! It's on the other end of the hall. Can you get to that?"  
"I should be able to." Michael said. "What do you need?"  
  
"Blood. There's a refrigerator in there that has some bags of blood." O negative, it would have to be O negative. He wasn't entirely sure about that, of course, but at this point he was willing to risk it.  
"Get all of it and there should be an IV set up kit. Do you...."  
  
"I can figure it out," Michael said with a concerned look at Lona before heading for the door with Breanna's aid. "Although I do have to wonder why you would be needing a lot of blood in your morgue. Do you get very many visits from vampires here?"  
  
Lona felt herself drifting out of her narrowly focused state as she felt warmth slowly slipping back into her body. Her vision was starting to clear slightly and she saw with a smile that the little girl was back,  
gently touching her forehead, trying to soothe the pain as the contractions wracked her body. And there was something else, something that was still a blur, by her side.  
  
'Here, let me help,' Antubis said as he moved around slightly behind Lona, letting Elmer adjust his hold on her somewhat so that the anteater's furry body was supporting her partially as well. His long tongue rapidly moved in and out, licking at her face now, a gentle tickling sensation.  
  
"Lona?" Chris looked up for a moment as Hook joined her before turning to the situation at hand. If they could get that blood and get this baby delivered quickly. And if she could just manage to remember a bit more about those med school classes that covered this, that would definitely be good as well.  
  
'You catch. It's easy. Even a child could do it,' Antubis said with a chuckle. 'So, what naughty things were you doing that you missed learning about that too?'  
  
Lona moaning cut off anything that Chris could say in reply to that.  
"Lona?" She called her friend's name once more, trying to get her attention.  
  
"You just worry about catching." Mary said with a soft laugh.  
"We'll handle everything else." Her fingers gently stroked Lona's forehead in rhythm with Antubis's tongue licking her face, causing Lona to look up at them a slightly dazed expression on her face. "It's time for the baby now. Do you think you can help a little?"  
  
Lona wasn't sure at this point if she could understand what anyone around her was saying but she definitely got what the child was saying about it being time for the baby. She bit her lip as she forced herself to gather the strength she had left, suddenly more than she thought she had had moments before, as she pushed with the pain feeling the baby slipping lower and lower before she sagged back against Elmer and what she now realized had to be that anteater as the pain eased.  
  
Chris felt a little smile settle on her face. This might just work. They might be able to come out of this without losing one of them if Lona could just hold out for a few more minutes. She started to speak but stoped as she saw another pain beginning and more of the baby appearing.  
Panic suddenly washed over her. Now what did the little girl and anteater say?  
  
'Catch!' Antubis shook his head. Really, what WERE these people doing when they were supposed to be learning these simple little things?  
Did they spend their entire medical school careers either doing naughty things or plotting to do more naughty things?  
  
"Do what the anteater says!" Lona forced out as the pain eased slightly before gripping her again, changing slightly as she pushed this time, burning, like fire and....  
  
Chris looked over at Hook, her eyes widening as she took one of the blankets he held out to her. Okay, at this point doing what the anteater said and just catching sounded like a very practical suggestion.  
  
Lona could hear the little girl and Elmer both whispering reassurances to her but she forced herself to tune them out as she pushed once more, tears in her eyes now. She knew she had to do this but what if something was wrong with the baby, what if....  
  
"Lona?" Elmer felt her suddenly slump back against him as if she was a limp rag doll, the feeling frightening him until he suddenly heard a soft sound, almost like the mewing of a cat. His eyes widened as a moment later Chris lifted the baby, still wet but not crying, just looking around with sleepy curiosity, onto Lona's stomach. "Oh, my...." He reached out,  
hesitantly touching the little creature with one finger, afraid he would break it if he did anything else.  
  
Lona felt her eyelids growing heavy as she looked down at the baby and she didn't bother to fight it now. The baby was here and safe and she was just so, so tired. A little rest couldn't hurt her now. 


	38. chapter 38

Elmer wasn't quite sure where to look, torn between staring in wonder at the baby and his worries over Lona. "Lona?" He softly whispered her name, stroking her cheek with one hand as he tentively touched the baby once more with a finger. Why wasn't she conscious? He looked up at Hook for a moment, worry filling his eyes and his expression plainly saying what he couldn't bring himself to speak out loud.  
  
Hook looked over at Chris, honestly not sure of what to say to Elmer. He was feeling a bit more hopeful that they would be able to save Lona, but at the same time he knew there wasn't a way to know for sure. He vaguely remembered reading something in medical school about some mothers hemorrhaging after the birth. If that happened now....  
  
"She's doing fine," Chris said with a slight smile as she glanced up at Elmer for a moment, before beckoning for Antubis to join her after a slight hesitation. Miraculously, it seemed that with the baby being born,  
the bleeding had slowed considerably. Of course, Lona was definitely way too pale still but Chris felt her hopes rising rapidly that things would be okay, especially if they could get a transfusion started soon.  
  
"Some mamas like to sleep after they have their babies," Mary said, smiling and letting out a slight giggle at the sight of the still more than a bit worried expression on Elmer's face. "Mine always slept."  
As she talked, she reached down and gently touched the baby herself. It really seemed like someone ought to be holding the poor little thing. Mary glanced over at Elmer but he still seemed to shocked that the baby was actually there to take the initiative to pick it up.  
  
"Antubis?" Mary let the baby wrap its tiny fingers around one of her fingers and she gently touched it. Someone really, really needed to be holding the little thing and since it didn't look like Doctor Lona could at the moment, then the baby's daddy would just have to manage it.  
  
Elmer didn't notice what Mary was doing, he was so torn between trying to focus on both Lona and their baby at the same time. Okay, Chris said that Lona was okay but how much did she actually know about this anyway? Did anyone here know much about babies being born and what was normal?  
  
'That would be Mary and I,' Antubis said with a chuckle as he stretched out a paw at Mary's bidding, cutting through the cord between two ties with one of his claws very carefully. 'Really, now, what did all of you do in medical school anyway? How many naughty things could you find to do? Well,' He gave Elmer a pointed look as he spoke. 'I think we know all about the naughty things you can dream up.'  
  
Elmer started to glare at the anteater but he stopped when he suddenly saw Mary lift the baby up into her arms, tucking the blanket that had been arranged over its back around it more securely as she lifted it.  
"Hey!" His eyes widened even more with sudden fright. If the baby got dropped Lona would never forgive him!  
  
"Here." Mary moved over to Elmer, before he could do anything to stop her reaching out and tucking the baby into his arms.  
  
Elmer looked from Mary to the baby, his expression even more frightened now if such a thing were possible. What in the world was the little girl thinking giving him the baby to hold? He would drop it or break it or.... He frantically looked around the room for someone, anyone who looked like they could do a better job of this than he could.  
  
'They don't break. Believe me, I would know after over a thousand years if it was possible for them to break,' Antubis said as he finished talking to Chris and moved back to his original position, his snout poking over Elmer's good shoulder now, sniffing the baby slightly. 'Just move your hand a bit. You want to hold the head a bit more.'  
  
Elmer looked down at the baby, trying to adjust his hold like the anteater said when suddenly the baby opened its eyes fully, looking up at him with what he could only assume was curiosity.  
  
"It's alright," he whispered as he cuddled the baby close to him,  
the fear he had felt slowly fading away with each moment that the baby was in his arms. It felt like everyone else in the room had suddenly faded away as he looked down at his child. So, so innocent. 'I'm not going to goof anything up this time,' He wasn't sure if he spoke that aloud or not.  
He wasn't sure if he could do this, if he could be the sort of father that their baby deserved but looking down at it he knew he was certainly going to do his best or die trying. He wasn't going to disappoint his child,  
wasn't going to disappoint Lona again. Suddenly the thought of her snapped him back to reality and he looked down into her pale face as worry suddenly washed over him once more. If they lost her now.... The thought of the baby never knowing its mother sent a cold chill up his back, much, much too close to what had happened with his own mother.  
"Please, Lona, you have to get better," he whispered into her ear as he leaned down, pressing a soft kiss against her forehead. "We need you. Please don't leave us." 


	39. chapter 39

"It's going to be okay, Elmer. We're going to take good care of Lona," Hook said as he patted his younger colleague's uninjured shoulder reassuringly, letting out a small sigh of relief as Michael and Breanna appreared in the doorway with the supplies from the morgue. This was going to be okay. If they could get some blood into Lona, she would be fine.  
"You might want to get someone to take a look at that bite though, see if it needs an exorcism or something. Don't think your dad would be very happy if you turned into a vampire come tomorrow night."  
  
"I don't think that boy was actually a vampire," Michael said as he limped over, his leg slowly reappearing as he moved. The knelt down next to them, looking critically at Elmer's neck as he passed Hook the blood. The bite was scabbed over now, healed tremendously but still visible if you knew where to look. "You might want to get some Holy Water on that though, just to be safe. And a what to they call it? A tetanus shot?"  
  
"I think we can arrange that," Hook said with a grin as he looked over at Elmer, noting the pained look on his face at the mention of the tetanus shot. This was working, doing stuff to keep Elmer's mind off of Lona, to keep him from panicking. Not that Hook could really blame him for his concern deep down though. If it was Chris in that condition...  
  
"Shouldn't someone try to go upstairs and see about getting the hall cleared?" Sally asked as she approached, smiling down at the baby in Elmer's arms as she drew near. She hoped that Bobby wasn't too concerned about where she was. No, she doubted that he would be, she thought with a rueful shake of her head. He was probably in the lobby with Otto looking at one of those nurse magazines and didn't even know she was gone.  
  
"I'll go," Antubis said as he lumbered towards the door. Not like anyone else could get out of here anyway, well, except for maybe the ghost.  
Honestly, he felt like that dog on the tv show that the children used to watch years ago. What was its name now? He had to admit that she did have very nice fur.  
  
A little bit later, Antubis strolled through the stairwell door into the now deserted lobby. He glanced over at Otto's desk curiously.  
Now where in the world was his friend? Not to mention his pal's human.  
Usually by this time, Otto was all settled in behind his desk happily reading one of those nurse magazines. Now where were.....  
  
Suddenly a sweet smell hit the anteater's nose and he cautiously worked his way around Steg's car heading for the parking lot. To bad Stegman was an ass at the moment. If he was human and saw that he would probably literally explode.  
  
"There you are!" Blondi suddenly appeared in front of Antubis, a cookie in his mouth. "So, how did you get out of attending the fake fire drill? I had to snag cookies on my own!"  
  
"I was in the basement." Antubis sniffed at the cookie as his friend started to munch. Now where in the world had that cookie came from?  
Certainly not from the cafeteria. Sometimes Antubis suspected the things that they served down there were possibly attempts by Dr. James to poison people and ensure more business. "Where did you get that?"  
  
"Witches brought it." Blondi said, waving his head in the direction of the group of witches and the hospital staff who were standing clustered together trying to work out what was happening. "So, what's going on in the basement? Dr. Traff's been pitching a fit about Elmer being down there."  
  
"If he's pitching a fit now, just wait until he gets the happy news that he's a grandfather," Antubis said with a snicker as he headed for the witches followed by Blondi. Okay, he doubted that Dr. James would be much help with the current situation but maybe Traff senior could do something to calm his son down a bit. Well, if he didn't have a heart attack first.  
  
"Well, it still seems intact," Eleanor said slowly as she observed the building critically before glaring at her nephew. "And you better hope for your sake that it stays that way. If you wind up unemployed, you are not coming to stay at the school. Professor Flakey has not been a well man ever since that severing charm incident and he has tenure!"  
  
As Antubis approached, he slipped behind Jesse, looking up at the cookie in his hand, his long tongue coming out slightly. If he did this right he could get some help down to the basement and get a nice snack. A second later, he flicked his long tail as Jesse moved back slightly to get a better look at the hospital, causing him to stagger and the cookie to fall from his hand.  
  
"What is that?" Otto murmured, staring in shock as the giant anteater strolled forward, snickering slightly as his long tongue snaked out to snag the dropped cookie.  
  
"Antubis," Luretzia said with a slightly amused expression on her face as she crossed to the large creature and knelt down beside him. "Now what are you doing here? Where's Mary?"  
  
"In the basement with her brother and most of the competent doctors," Antubis said as he finished the cookie, his mind going back to what he was supposed to be doing once more now that there wasn't food at hand to distract him. "You might want to see about getting down there.  
Part of the hallway collapsed and they can't get out."  
  
"Wait a minute." Louis couldn't quite believe that he was about to do this but he had to know. "My son..." He stopped for a moment not sure if he wanted to know the answer but knowing he had to ask anyway. "He was down in the basement with Dr. Massengale. Is he.... And Lona, Otto thought she might be hurt." Louis shook his head. Even if Elmer was alright physically, if something had happened to Lona, he doubted his son could ever recover fully from that.  
  
"Oh, Elmer's fine," Antubis said with a soft snicker. He couldn't wait until Louis found out exactly what his son had been up to. "Lona isn't in the best shape though." He was sure that she would be fine but he supposed he better get them to bring some extra things along for her just in case.  
  
"Well, can we assume the hospital isn't about to fall in?" Eleanor said as headed for the hospital doors after the anteater, everyone else following along behind.  
  
"Not unless building maintence has been cut a bit too much."  
Antubis said with a snicker just as Johnny B. Goode appeared. "And with him in charge I think it could be safe to assume it might have been."  
  
"Hey, I've got to knock off early tonight," Johnny called. "Got to go and see about getting...."  
  
"Johnathan B. Goode, get yourself back here!" Eleanor called in a tone that made the hospital maintence man revert to a schoolboy momentarily. "You are in charge of this building and it seems part of it has collapsed! You are not going anywhere until you help us repair it!  
And as for you," She looed sternly at her nephew as she spoke. "You are to stay out here and keep these people occupied!" She shook her head as she turned and followed the anteater once more. Goodness knows what would happen if her nephew tried his hand at a banishing charm.  
  
"Oh," Antubis stopped for a moment as they started down the stairs.  
"Someone might want to see about rounding up some of the supplies that they have for women having babies. And they have baby supplies here,  
right?"  
  
"Why would we need any of that?" Louis asked as he stared curiously at the anteater.  
  
"You'll see," Antubis looked at him for a moment, softly snickering before continuing down the steps. "Might want to get those baby things for sure though." He couldn't wait until Louis saw what his son had been up to. 


	40. chapter 40

Louis started in shock as they reached the part of the corridor that had been blocked by the earthquake. Okay, that anteater had said that his son was okay but seeing all of that.... "Are you sure that Elmer's not hurt?" He demanded anxiously as he looked from debris to anteater, worry rapidly increasing. How could Elmer have escaped injury in an earthquake bad enough to do that much damage and how in the world were they going to get them dug out of there? This looked way worse than the first earthquake that had collapsed part of the basement. And if Lona's was hurt....  
  
'Oh, Elmer will be fine,' Antubis had to fight to keep from snickering too much as he thought of the situation with Elmer, Lona and that baby. He wondered if they had got around to checking and seeing the baby's sex yet. Probably not with how worried Elmer had been acting when he left. 'I'll go and let them know you're on the way.'  
  
Eleanor vaguely nodded as the anteater disappeared through the debris before turning towards Johnny B. Goode. "Where is your wand, now?  
This hospital is your responsibility!"  
  
"Hey, Mona Klingerman took it. That's why I need to knock off early so I can see about getting a replacement." Johnny backed away a little as he spoke, heading for the stairs. "I really...."  
  
"Then you can get back here and start removing this manually,"  
Eleanor said as she moved forward and drug Johnny right back. "I am not my nephew who for some benighted reason seems to let you get away with doing no work whatsoever!"  
  
"I think I'll help Antubis check on things," Lucretzia said as she started through the pile of debris herself. In her current, barely pulled together condition, she knew she would be unable to do much to help with clearing a path. And besides her concern for her friend's safety, she had to admit that she was curious what that anteater kept snickering about.  
  
'Decided to come too?' Antubis asked as Lucretzia followed him down the hallway.  
  
"I wanted to see what you seem to be finding so funny." Lucretzia said before calling out. "Michael! Where are you?"  
  
"I think we can rest easy now," Michael said with a shake of his head. "Looks like someone finally got my colleagues here. Lucy, we're down this way!"  
  
"Don't call me Lucy," she said with a frown as she came into the room followed by Antubis. "What in the world happened down here? Eleanor had to leave Poor Professor Flakey in charge of the school, you know."  
  
"What happened is a long, long story, Lucy," Michael stood and walked over to the dark skinned witch, Mary following a bit behind him.  
  
"Don't call me Lucy unless you want me to start calling you Mickey," Lucretzia said with a half frown just as she spotted Mary. She dropped to her knees on the floor in front of the little girl, drawing he into a hug. "Hello, Mary. You won't believe how happy I am to see you finally. Your brother and I have been looking for you for a very long time now." She smiles as she caught sight of Mona watching them, playing with the wand as she watched. "And you must be Mona. Come here, dear. Very,  
very clever of you taking Johnny's wand."  
  
"You still hold the roses against Johnny, don't you?" Michael said with a laugh as Mona came over. His eyes widened slightly as he caught sight of the second bell around her neck. He was going to have to have a talk with the anteater about that and what it meant, that was for sure.  
  
"It took me two years to train those roses properly. Of course I'm still holding it against him. Now, what's going on down here? The anteater said something about some medical supplies being needed?"  
  
While the two ghosts were talking, Antubis headed over to Lona and Elmer once again. 'Your father was looking for you, you know.' the anteater said with a soft snicker as he dropped to the ground, snuggling the bulk of his furry body against Lona. 'He seemed rather worried that you were squished by the earthquake or something so maybe he'll be understanding when he finds out what naughty things you've been up to.'  
  
His father. Elmer shook his head slightly at the mention of his father. He had vaguely recalled that he was going to have to tell his dad about this but with the situation with Lona and how close he had come to loosing both her and the baby.... He felt a faint prickle of worry at the notion of announcing the happy news to his dad but he quickly forced that away. Why in the world would he need to be worried about giving his dad this news? Surely he would be thrilled about the baby! And maybe his dad could do something to help Lona? Elmer looked anxiously down at Lona's still pale face. Hook and Chris had an IV started running blood into her arm but he couldn't really detect any sort of change. She was just so pale and still. And her breathing, it was so weak. Could something be seriously wrong with her, maybe something from when that boy had attacked her?  
  
"Ummm, how long will it take them to get in here?" Elmer asked as he looked up anxiously at first Hook and then the new ghost. He couldn't believe how calmly he was taking that ghost thing now. If anyone had asked him yesterday, he would have said he didn't believe in ghosts.  
  
"Soon." Lucretzia said as she came over, suddenly realizing what the anteater had been snickering about when she caught sight of the baby although she didn't really know why that would be so funny. She frowned slightly ash she looked down at the woman's pale appearance and the amount of blood staining some of the blankets. "Do you need me to go back and tell them to bring anything?"  
  
Hook paused for a moment. sharing a look with Chris as the both ran over in their minds what they might need before speaking. "Tell them to get another IV setup and the equipment to do a type and match," Hook said slowly. The O negative blood from the morgue would work for the moment but he would definately prefer to be able to get some properly matched blood into Lona as soon as possible.  
  
"We need a OB kit too and some more blankets," Chris added. Sally and Natalie had found all of the clean blankets left in the lab that they could but Lona's skin still felt cold to the touch, almost unnaturally cold. Chris looked over at the baby in Elmer's arms as she spoke. She would have asked for them to bring an incubator for the little thing but she somehow doubted that they would persuade Elmer to put the baby down at this point.  
  
"I'll tell them," Lucretzia said as she headed for the door once more. "Be right back." As she passed through the doorway, she turned with a teasing smile on her face to her friend. "Please try not to get lost again while I'm gone, Michael. I don't think Poor Professor Flakey can stand to spend much more time with the children."  
  
'So, have you managed to figure out what gender you've got there yet?' Antubis looked up at Elmer before pressing himself tighter against Lona's side. She really was much colder than she should be.  
  
Elmer looked down at the baby in his arms. He hadn't even thought about finding out if it was a boy or a girl until the anteater said something. He reached out to shift the blankets slightly but then he stopped himself. No, after what Lona had gone though she deserved to be the first one to find out what their baby was. "No, he said softly. Not until Lona wakes up. She deserves to know first." He whispered as he stared down into her pale face. She was going to wake up and be okay, she had to! 


	41. chapter 41

"Everything alright down here?" Dr. James called from the stairwell door. "Not that it's my fault if anything isn't alright, of course." He frowned slightly at the pile of debris blocking the hallway before with a firm shake of his head reminding himself that it was just Johnny doing some routine maintence.  
  
"Go back upstairs," Eleanor said with a frown as she shot a glance over at her nephew. "You better not have your wand out either. I do not relish the thought of you bringing the hospital crashing down on my head at this point!"  
  
"I was just wanting to see if anyone had seen Mona Klingerman. Her mother is getting a bit upset and the word lawsuit seems to be slipping into the conversation with alarming frequency." Jesse said with a nervous look that he always got at the sound of that word.  
  
"Mona Klingerman is just fine. She's with Michael and his sister.  
Delightful child," Lucretzia said as she stepped out of the pile of debris.  
  
"She's.... How did she get down here?" Jesse muttered. The last he had saw of little Mona, she certainly was in no condition to go wandering around the hospital.  
  
"I would assume she walked. Very nice child. Made off with Johnny's wand nicely," Lucretzia said with a chuckle before turning her eyes on her other least favorite former student. "Too bad she didn't get your wand too. Things would have been much safer."  
  
"Are you still upset about that greenhouse?" Jesse muttered. "It was only a minor incident."  
  
"You blew it up!" Lucretzia yelled before turning to Eleanor.  
"Listen, they wanted me to see about getting some supplies together for them for when we get in there."  
  
Louis was half listening, enjoying a bit hearing Dr. James get yelled at but the mention of the need for medical supplies made him snap to attention. Okay, he had been reassured repeatedly that Elmer was fine but still, something deep down wouldn't let him believe it wholly until he had seen his son with his own two eyes.  
  
"What's wrong in there?" He asked as he hurried over. Elmer and then there was Lona as well. If anything happened to her.  
Lucretzia paused, not really sure of what to tell him. It seemed fairly obvious that he didn't know that his son and that female doctor were expecting a baby and the fact that the anteater kept laughing made her very suspicious. Best to let them figure out how to announce that bit of happy news,  
  
"They need another IV setup and the equipment for a blood type and match," Lucretzia said as she tried to remember exactly what they had asked her to request. "Definitely more blankets and something called an OB kit?" She shook her head slightly. She would have to check with Anne and see if she had any herbs with her. There were a few things that she knew of that might help in a circumstance like this one.  
  
Louis felt a cold chill run over him at the mention of the first equipment requested. That anteater had definitely said that Lona was hurt.  
If she was injured badly enough to need blood, then.... His mind flashed back to what had happened weeks before with his former wife and how he had been unable to save her. He still felt that failure and wasn't sure how he would ever find a way to live with it. If Elmer had to go through that.  
He wanted to believe his son's feelings for Lona were just a crush but he had to admit deep down that he had always suspected it might be more. And if it was, he would do anything in his power to spare Elmer from experiencing the loss that he had.  
  
"I'll go and get the things." He said before Jesse could volunteer. Better that someone competent gathered the things and his opinion of Dr. James' competence, which had never been very high, was going down quickly upon meeting his former teachers. As he headed up the stairs,  
he slowly shook his head sending up a silent prayer. Lona had to be alright. If Elmer had to sit there and loose her.....  
  
'So, thought of how you're going to explain this to your father,  
yet?' Antubis asked Elmer as he looked up for a moment. He shook his furry head slightly motioning for Mona to join Mary at Lona's side. Now where were those witches with more blankets? She was definitely way colder than she should be. That couldn't be good for her health. Maybe that ass could be skinned for its pelt? It would be one of the only good things Stegman might do if he got turned into a blanket.  
  
Mary giggled slightly as she thought of how Dr. Louis was going to react when he found out about the baby before sobering slightly. She really hoped that he would be pleased about it. He had been so, so sad when his other son had died. She had tried so hard to save him but just couldn't reach him. At least Elmer did seem to listen, at least a little bit, to Antubis.  
  
Elmer shot a glare at the anteater, trying to hide his nervousness at the thought of telling his father the news about the baby and then there was the situation with him and Lona. He loved her, had always loved her,  
with all of his heart. He knew that Lona thought he just had a crush on her but he had always known that his feelings went much, much deeper than that. Now that they had their baby to consider, would she maybe hear him out, take his declarations about his feelings a bit more seriously? No matter what, he was going to be right there for Lona to take care of her and their baby. He had almost lost both of them and he wasn't going to take a chance on anything else happening to them.  
  
He snuggled the baby a bit closer, looking down into Lona's pale,  
drawn face as he did so. Okay, the little girl had said that it was okay if she went to sleep but was this just sleeping or.... He glanced up anxiously towards the doorway. Where was that other ghost with the medical supplies and where was his dad?  
  
'Eager to share all about the naughty things that you've been up to?' Antubis said as they suddenly heard a loud crashing noise from the corridor followed by footsteps.  
  
Louis had been behind the group of witches as they finally managed to break a way in through the pile of debris but as the headed down the hallway towards the sleep lab, he edged his way around them. He had to get down there, to see for himself that his son was actually safe.  
  
"Elmer?" He called as he hurried down the hallway and through the door to the sleep lab. He stopped in the doorway, relief washing over him as he saw his son on the floor, Lona resting with her head and shoulder propped up against Elmer's chest, the relief slowly tempered with worry as he saw the blood soaking the collar and sleeve of his son's shirt.  
  
"Elmer, are you alright?" He demanded as he started forward,  
suddenly stopping as his brain finally processed what his son was holding in his arms. Louis stopped, staring in shock at the baby, his jaw dropping slightly as he started to put some of the pieces of what might have happened together.  
  
"Dad, I have something to tell you," Elmer said slowly,  
hesitently. "Could you please come and help us with Lona first, though?  
She's really sick." 


	42. chapter 42

Louis stood transfixed for what felt like forever, staring at his son holding that baby and Lona nestled against him. A baby? Where in the world could a baby have came from? Well, it did seem a bit obvious where it had came from but that fact didn't seem to be wanting to sink into his head. Lona certainly hadn't seemed pregnant when he had seen her earlier in the day so how.... And if she had been pregnant, why on earth hadn't she told anyone?  
  
"Dad, please." Elmer looked at his father, a bit of worry starting to hit him now. Why wasn't his dad saying anything? Why was he just standing there staring at Lona and the baby like that? The thought had never crossed Elmer's mind that his dad would be anything but totally thrilled when he found out about the baby but now it suddenly occured to him that maybe his dad might not be so pleased after all. What if his dad didn't want to be a grandfather or hated the baby or.... He snuggled the little bundle closer to him as he thought about it, as if trying to shield the baby from the potential rejection. No, he wasn't going to let that happen to his child, wasn't going to let it be rejected and left to wonder what if might have done that was so terribly wrong to deserve rejection.  
Louis finally snapped out of his confused daze at the sight of the expression on his son's face, like what would be expected on a puppy that had just been kicked. It had always annoyed Louis when Elmer looked at him like that. He wasn't really annoyed with Elmer though, but with himself.  
Every time he saw that look on his son's face it just seemed to be pointing out all of his mistakes and inadequicies as a father, things that had haunted him for years now. It just hurt so much to be reminded almost constantly, to know that he had failed some terribly at something that he had wanted to succeed at so much.  
  
"Dad?" Elmer whispered, his fears almost back full force now as he looked up at his father. Why wasn't he doing something, at least trying to help Lona? Surely even if he hated Elmer and the baby, he wouldn't let Lona suffer or die because of it!  
  
'Hyperventilating again,' Antubis hissed in Elmer's ear as the big anteater moved slightly so that he could speak to the younger doctor without anyone hearing.  
  
Mary approached Louis, slight concern in her eyes as she reached out and took his hand. Why wasn't he coming over to see the baby and help with Dr. Lona? Poor Elmer was so worried. He needed his father there to help him right now. And didn't Dr. Louis want to see the baby? Mary looked at him with puzzlement. He had been so sad when his other son died so why was he acting funny like this now? The little girl tugged on his hand, dragging him across the room to Lona and Elmer's side. There. Now maybe he would get the idea and do something to help if he could just get a closer look at the baby. It was so tiny and cute.  
  
The little girl drawing him forward seemed to snap Louis out of his daze. As he knelt on the floor by his son and Lona, he shook his head slowly trying to clear it. He could worry about the details of what had happened here later. All that should matter right now was the fact that his son was safe and sound and his worst nightmare hadn't came true after all. The rest would work itself out later. Suddenly he reached out and impulsively hugged his son to him, being careful of both Elmer's injured shoulder and the baby cuddled in his arms. No, the other stuff definately didn't matter now, not with his son safe.  
  
Elmer's eyes widened at the embrace, suprise apparent on his face,  
but with worry rapidly replacing the surprise. The last time his father had done something like this was when his mother had died and then before that it had been when.... Only when someone died. Did that mean that he thought Lona was going to die? No, he couldn't lose her! Their baby needed her!  
  
'Might want to do something to get her fixed up,' Antubis said as he looked from Elmer's now frantic expression over to Louis before snuggling closer to Lona. Boy, if he was in shock now and he had just seen the baby, wait until Louis found out exactly where that baby had been conceived! Antubis snickered softly as he thought of that. Now that would be fun to watch.  
  
Louis shot a look at the anteater, wondering why in the world that creature kept snickering like that, like he knew something that the rest of them didn't. A look from his son's frightened face to Lona's pale one was enough to convince him that he didn't even want to try to figure out what was going on and what the anteater found so funny at the moment though.  
Lona definately needed his focus. Chris and Hook had an IV going, running what must have been blood from the morgue but if Lona's pale skin and fragile appearance was any clue, it hadn't made a difference yet.  
  
"How much blood did she loose?" He asked Hook quietly, his eyes moving from his son to Lona and back again as he spoke, wanting to reassure himself that his son was still there, safe and sound. He knew that he needed to focus his attention on Lona but at the same time he could barely resist his urge to want to tend his son and make sure that he really was alright. And then there were the questions about the baby. If Lona was the mother and it seemed apparent that she was, then who was the father?  
"Too much." Hook said quietly, hoping that Elmer wouldn't hear.  
  
If the younger doctor thought that Lona might still be in danger.... Hook thought that at this point with the baby born and the bleeding pretty much stopped, that she would be okay but he wasn't willing to say that for sure,  
not yet. There was still too much that could go wrong, especially with the amount of blood Lona had lost.  
  
"The anteater did something that helped stop it," Chris continued in the same quiet tone as she looked up at Louis with concern. She really hoped that he would be able to deal with this. Elmer was going to need all of the support that he could get with Lona so ill and with a baby now to consider. She shook her head slightly as she thought of it. Who would have believed that Elmer would have been a father by day's end that morning?  
  
Louis' eyes wandered to the bloodstained blankets nearby, eyes widdening slightly at the number and amount of blood that seemed to have soaked in to them. If Lona had lost that much blood.... No, he wouldn't let himself think of what such an extensive bloodloss could mean for Lona's chances of survival and recovery. He had had to stand by and loose Emma without being able to save her. There was no way that he was just going to sit there and let his son go through the same thing, not while there was something, anything, that he could do to prevent it. He looked up as he saw the other witches appearing in the doorway now with the supplies,  
pulling himself to his feet and hurrying towards them. Whatever it took,  
he was going to fix this for his son. 


	43. chapter 43

"Where did that ass come from?" Otto asked, puzzlement on his face as he peered around the witches into the room. Okay, witches, ghosts and other strange things weren't too shocking considering some of the strange things he had seen at Kingdom Hospital but something about that ass was very confusing for some reason.  
  
"It used to be Dr. Stegman." Mary said with a smile. "Mona changed him. I don't think he's going to be able to come in to work tommorrow. Someone better call him in sick."  
  
"Better call him in sick until Monday at the least," Eleanor said as she walked over, prodding the ass with her wand slightly. "The transfiguration teachers are at a conferance in Tempe until then." She shook her head slightly as she thought of the transfiguration department.  
Okay, they said they were in Tempe but that owl they had sent announcing their safe arrival had smelled suspiciously of tequila and the postcard the message was on said Welcome to Tijuana!  
  
"Not much of a change is it? I can hardly tell a difference,"  
Blondi muttered as he padded over to join his friend, stopping to stare curiously for a moment at the baby in Elmer's arms. "So, I see that those naughty things finally caught up with you. So, what's wrong with her?"  
  
'Lost too much blood,' Antubis murmured as he motioned for his friend to lay down on Lona's other side, forming a nice furry blanket for her. The big anteater still wasn't entirely sure that even with the witches' arriving with fresh blankets that that ass shouldn't be skinned for his pelt anyway, They really did need to get some good use out of Stegman after all.  
  
Elmer shook his head, trying to ignore whatever the anteater was chatting about with his friend now. Honestly, it did explain a lot of unusual things about Otto's dog to learn that he hung out with that anteater though. Hereached out, taking one of the blankets from the dark skinned witch to wrap the baby up a bit better before turning his focus onto Lona once more. Hook and his father had another IV inserted in her other arm now and two more units of blood were running in but Elmer still couldn't see that it was making much difference in her condition. He bit his lip, trying to force his fear down at the sight of her still deathly pale face. Why wasn't she reacting to anything they were doing? Shouldn't she be reacting by now, be waking up? She hadn't even got to hold the baby yet and as much as he was enjoying having their child snuggled into his arms, he wanted to be able to give the baby to Lona, to let her be able to hold their child for the first time too.  
  
'Let her sleep for awhile.' Antubis said quietly so that only Elmer could hear him, snickering slightly as he spoke. 'Or were you wanting to do more naughty things with her in the morgue?'  
  
Louis glanced over as he heard the anteater saying something to his son, not quite able to catch what it was though. He shook his head slightly before turning his focus back to Lona. She wasn't bleeding now.  
At least that was something that was in her favor. She didn't seem to be responding at all to the transfusions they were giving her though and that more than concerned him. Okay, the transfusion hadn't been running for very long but still they should be seeing some response, even if it was only a slight one. He reached out, gently touching her cheek. Her skin was so cold. Not a good sign at all. "Do you have any idea how much blood she could have lost?" he quietly asked Hook. Okay, he was a doctor and he should probably know how much blood loss was dangerous for a pregnant woman but those med school classes had been a long time ago. Then with the births of both of his sons, he had gotten off shift just in time to see them getting cleaned up, not to catch the actual births. AS he thought on his sons' births, the fact there was someone missing here hit him. Okay,  
he was definately accepting that Lona had been pregnant somehow and they had all missed it but where in the world was the father of the baby? Had he dumped her or....  
  
Hook shook his head at Louis's question. Considering the fact that Lona had been bleeding in three different time periods, it would be a little hard to get an exact estimate on the amount of blood she had actually lost. He looked over at Chris for a moment. He could hear the witches talking in the background, fussing over Mary and Mona but at the moment all the group of doctors could focus on was doing what they needed to try ot help Lona. "I think we need a pressure cuff on at least one of those units of blood," Hook said softly to Chris. Usually pressure cuffs were just used for trauma cases but considering Lona's lack of response so far, it looked like they were going to have to bump their efforts to help her up a notch.  
  
Chris nodded as she moved away, searching through the pile of supplies that the witches had brought to see if the needed equipment was there. As she checked, she looked over at Elmer out of the corner of her eye. Someone really needed to take a look at him if they could ever pry him away from Lona. With the damage that had been done to his neck before the anteater had fixed it, she wouldn't be surprised if he didn't need a transfusion as well.  
  
Suddenly, Dr. James poked his head into the room. "Everything alright in here?" he called brightly, his eyes widening slightly at the sight of Mona Klingerman curled up on one of the beds along with Mary,  
sitting with Michael and Lucretzia on either side of them. He shook his head, forcing any thoughts about the strangeness of Mona suddenly seeming normal away. No, there was nothing odd at all going on in Kingdom Hospital. Suddenly his eyes fell on Lona and then on the baby in Elmer's arms. "What's going on here?" He asked curiously. A baby? Where had a baby came from? The last time he had checked there had been no babies in the basement. "And Dr. Hook, Dr. Draper, I would like a word with you about skipping the fire safety drill."  
  
"We were a bit busy at the time," Chris said with a shake of her head as she passed Hook the pressure cuff, motioning with her free hand towards Lona and then the baby.  
  
"Oh, my." Okay, this was unusual enough to penitrate Jesse's usually hard as rock brain. "You mean that Dr. Massingale had a baby? But she didn't fill out any maternity leave forms?" Puzzlement was in his voice now as he spoke. "And who's the father?"  
  
"That's what I would like to know," Louis said with a shake of his head as he looked down at Lona. He considered her a friend as well as a co-worker and the thought that she might have been abandoned by whoever had fathered her baby, especially considering her current condition, enraged him.  
  
"Ummm, dad?" Elmer said, a bit hesitently now when he saw the expression of momentary anger on his father's face. "You know the baby's father? That would kind of be me." 


	44. chapter 44

Louis stared at his son in shock, sure that he must have heard what Elmer had just said wrong. How could Elmer have possibly fathered Lona's baby? Unless they had changed the rules of biology lately and forgot to inform him, sex was called for to make a baby and Lona would never.  
"What did you just say?" He stammered. Yes, he definately had to have heard what Elmer was saying wrong.  
  
Elmer looked at his father with a slight bit of confusion. He could have sworn that he explained things clearly but maybe he didn't.  
"The baby's father, that would kind of be me, Dad. Now could you please do something to help Lona?" He was barely able to keep panic from overwhelming him as he looked down into her pale face. Lona always seemed so strong and capable but now she looked like a broken china doll.  
  
Okay. Louis was sure he heard his son correctly that time but it still wasn't quite sinking in for him. Elmer was the father of.... He slowly shook his head even as his hands moved on autopilot helping Hook and Chris tend to Lona. How could his son have possibly fathered Lona's baby?  
All he had heard from Elmer ever since the boy had entered the hospital was related to Lona and to his attempts to win her. Never once had he heard that one of those attempts had succeeded though. And the baby? If Elmer was going to be a father, why wouldn't he have told him? Had their relationship really deteriorated that far that his son wouldn't share something so important with him? He glanced over at Elmer out of the corner of his eye. Things had always been complicated with them. Elmer had been such a sensitive child and Louis knew that he hadn't been the best father but it just felt like he could never find a way to break out of the old ways of dealing with Elmer. Then when Edgar died, it seemed like things became even worse. Were they really that bad, though? So bad that his son wasn't able to tell him something so important in his life?  
  
Then there was the baby. Louis carefully looked at the little creature snuggled into his son's arms. He thought he might see a slight family resemblence but.... Why wouldn't Elmer have told him? Or more importantly, Lona? Okay, his relationship with his son was shaky einough that he could just slightly believe that Elmer might not have told him if he was going to be a father, might not have thought he would have cared.  
Lona, though, he had always considered her a good friend. Didn't she know him well enough to know that he would have been thrilled to get the news that his son was going to be a father? Why wouldn't she have told him if....  
  
His gaze narrowed slightly as he puzzled over the entire matter of Lona not telling anyone. That was the part that made no sense. Okay, Lona was a bit reclusive and focused on her experiments at times but she still did socialize with the other doctors. She wasn't reclusive enough that she could hide a pregnancy for nine months, so how.... This entire thing made no sense but the baby definately appeared to be Lona's. His gaze narrowed just a bit more, anxiously checking the baby for any sort of family resemblence. Was that baby his son's though or maybe.... Elmer was devoted to Lona and would do anything to help her. Could his son maybe be claiming the baby as his to protect Lona from someone worse, someone that had possibly hurt her? He shook his head slowly as thoughts rushed unbidden to his mind. If the father had hurt Lona or maybe if she didn't know who the father was.... Had she acted any differently over the last few months? Surely there would have been some sort of change if she had been.... He closed his eyes for a moment, not even wanting to think about it, to think about someone hurting a person that he considered a dear friend and he knew that his son considered much more.  
  
"Dad?" Elmer looked anxiously at his father. Why wasn't he saying something, asking questions about the baby, or saying something, anything?  
Every moment that passed with his father looking so intensly at the baby caused Elmer's fears to grow. What if his dad didn't want a grandchild,  
reject the baby like he had been rejected or worse said something to Lona and hurt her! no, he wouldn't let anything like that happen to Lona and their baby. Okay, his father didn't want him,. That fact nearly destroyed Elmer when he thought about it but he could somehow learn to live with it.  
It didn't mean that he was going to let his child go through that same thing though. His father could just figure out how to be a better grandfather than he had ever managed to be a father.  
  
Elmer looked down at Lona once more. He wanted her to be the only other one to hold the baby for awhile but surely she wouldn't mind too much if he let his father.... He reached out, before he had time to second guess himself, depositing the small bundle into his startled father's arms.  
He anxiously watched as his father looked down at the baby. Surely if he held it, he couldn't reject the poor little thing.  
  
Louis almost jumped in shock when Elmer suddenly pressed the baby into his arms. Why was Elmer giving him.... He started to press the baby back onto his son once more. He had never been very good with babies, had always been too afraid of hurting them to spend much time with them, even with his own sons. Just then the baby gave a little gurgling coo, though,  
causing Louis to look down at it. He slowly surveyed the little creature in his arms, slowly letting the small fingers and toes mesmerize him before snapping back to reality and looking over at his son, who was staring at him with an anxious expression awaiting his reaction.  
  
He slowly reached out a finger, leting the baby grasp it in its tiny fist. Okay, he still wasn't sure exactly what was going on with this entire baby situation, wasn't sure if his son was really the father or not but honestly, did that really matter in the big picture. He slowly shook his head as he considered it. Why in the world was he thinking so much about the details? Elmer was safe and sound when he could have easily have had to have been planning a funeral for his only remaining child. And the baby, did it really matter if Elmer was the father or not? He obviously loved the child already and that ought to be the only thing that mattered.  
He adjusted his grip on the baby, cuddling it to his chest as he reached out and drew his son to him in an embrace. This was going to be just fine.  
All they had to do now was get Lona fixed up and everything would be fine. 


	45. chapter 45

Mary smiled happily as she saw Louis hugging Elmer once more, the baby cuddled in his arms as he did so. Perfect, everything was absolutely perfect. They had fixed things and rescued the other children from the fire, they had the second bell, Paul and Gottreich were gone and now it looked like Elmer, his father, Lona and the baby were going to be able to form a nice little happy family. Definitely perfect. She snuggled further against her now semi-transparent bother, giggling slightly as she saw how Dr. Hook and Dr. Chris keep stealing little glances at each other as they tended to Lona. She had a feeling that they were going to be sneaking off in a bit to engage in more naughty things in the elevator. Really, it sometimes seemed that the only thing people in this hospital did were naughty things.  
  
Suddenly Mona tugged on her sleeve, pointing to Peter and his wife.  
They were kissing and.... Mary started to giggle slightly once more.  
Maybe she ought to tell them too about how nice the elevator was for naughty things too in case they wanted some privacy.  
  
'I'm sure they'll figure it out eventually on their own,' Antubis said as he lifted his head for a moment to see what Mary was finding so funny. Honestly, he had no idea what people found some romantic about a hospital but from the number of couples he had spotted engaging in various naughty acts around the building, there had to be something. The anteater laid down next to Lona once more, snuggling against her. After a moment,  
he looked up again. She definitely felt a bit warmer now and he could see that her color was starting to come back as well. He let out a soft sigh as he laid down next to her once more.  
  
"Lona?" Elmer reached out, gently stroking her cheek. Was he imagining things or did it look like her color might be improving just a bit? He looked over at Hook and Chris hoping for some sort of reassurance.  
Surely she was going to be okay. She had to be okay. If she came ought of this alright then he swore that he would never touch her again, would never do anything that might cause her to have to go through this again.  
  
'Want to bet how long you'll be able to stick to that?' Antubis said with a chuckle as he looked over at Elmer. 'Might want to see about getting her into bed somewhere. The floor isn't the most comfortable place to sleep,'  
  
"Bed's definitely a good idea." Hook said as he looked up from Lona, motioning for Chris to go and get one of the beds ready for her before turning to Elmer. "Don't worry, Elmer. She's going to be fine."  
  
Elmer nodded, forcing his worry down. Hook said she was going to be okay and he had to know what he was talking about, right? And her color did look definitely better. Elmer started to gather her into his arms but a spasm of pain shot down his arm from his injured shoulder as a wave of dizziness washed over him.  
  
"We'll handle her," Louis said gently as he slipped the baby back into Elmer's arms before joining Hook in lifting Lona between the two of them and carrying her to the waiting bed. "What happened to your neck?"  
There were two scabbed over places on his neck but Louis wasn't sure that that could account for all of the blood on Elmer's shirt.  
  
"Paul bit him." Mary said before Elmer could answer and downplay the injury. "But don't worry about it. He isn't really a vampire. He just has fangs for some reason." The little girl shook her head, puzzled.  
Why in the world did Paul actually have fangs? She was sure that he wasn't born with them or if he was she felt very sorry for his mother.  
  
Louis shook his head, not really sure what the little girl was saying exactly but the mention of a bite definitely concerning him. "Here,  
let me look at that." He said as Elmer hurried across the room determined to stay at Lona's side. He carefully tilted Elmer's side to inspect the puncture marks, shaking his head. Okay, that little girl had said his son hadn't been bitten by a vampire but those marks looked suspiciously like what a vampire would leave behind on his victim to him. How did you treat vampire bites anyway? They definitely hadn't covered that one in medical school. Maybe garlic? They probably had some of that in the kitchen. He shook his head, not really believing the direction in which his thoughts were suddenly going. Vampires. He couldn't believe that he was now thinking of vampires as if they were real. When he looked at those two marks on his son's neck though.... Yes, he was definitely going to see about getting some garlic to put on that. And tetanus shot as well.  
  
Elmer looked over at his father for a moment before turning his attention back to Lona once more. He definitely didn't like the way his father kept looking at those bite marks, like he was likely planning some sort of painful treatment for it. As he looked at Lona, he knew he couldn't waste time worrying about whatever his father had in mind for him,  
not when Lona needed him. "Please wake up now, Lona," he whispered softly to her, adjusting the baby a bit in his arms so that the tiny little fingers could brush against her cheek. "There's someone here who really wants to meet its mother. Please wake up!" 


	46. chapter 46

"Excuse me," Jesse said as he poked his head back into the room once more. "But I really need to take Mona back to her mother now. She's wanting to take her home and the word lawsuit...." He barely suppressed a shiver at that word, his eyes falling on the ass. Hey, there was a potentially good thing. If Stegman remained an ass, it would lower the hospital's legal liability costs substantially and without the messy business of firing him either. He would have to talk to his aunt right away about arranging that. First things first, though. Returning Mona to her mother. He crossed the room to where the little girl was sitting and reached out his hand to take hers. He still couldn't quite believe that the child was totally normal and expected her to let him passively lead her away.  
  
Mona squirmed backwards, shivering slightly as she passed through the bodies of the ghosts in her attempt to get away from Dr. James. Okay,  
she did want to see her mom and let her know that she was alright but she certainly didn't want to go anywhere with this idiot. The last time she had been taken somewhere by an idiot doctor... She suddenly recalled the wand and swished it in Jesse's direction as he moved towards her.  
  
"Well, that might make tomorrow's staff meeting a little interesting." Hook said as he looked down at the chicken that had formerly been the hospital administrator.  
  
"Entirely his fault. You should have known better." Eleanor said as she glared down at the chicken. "She had already turned one of your doctors into an ass. Did you think she wouldn't do the same thing to you if you startled her? Well, you'll just have to remain a chicken until Monday when the transfiguration teachers return. I hope he wasn't needed for anything before then."  
  
"I think we can get along without him." Hook said with a laugh.  
He knew that his morale was starting to soar already.  
  
Just then they heard a voice in the hallway. "Mona? Mona,  
sweetie, where are you? Baby, come out! I'm here to take you home!"  
  
"Eleanor," Michael said urgently. "Mona has the second bell and.  
She has been able to use it right?"  
  
"She and Mary hit Doctor Gottreich with the bells and he just crumpled into dust." Sally replied. "What are those bells?"  
  
"Very complicated to explain but if Mona can use it, then...."  
Michael started to say but then stopped as they heard footsteps drawing closer.  
  
"I'll be more than happy to explain things to Mona's mother."  
Antubis said as he moved away from Lona's bedside and started towards the door.  
  
"No, you won't. You'll tell her too much and scare her. Stay right there!" Mary ordered him, just as the door came open and Renee came stalking in. "Mona? Dr. James if you don't produce my daughter right now...." Just then she stopped in surprise when she saw the chicken and ass. "Why is there livestock in the basement?"  
  
"They work here." Mary told her as she stepped forward with Mona right behind her.  
  
"They...." What sort of nutty hospital had her daughter been admitted too. Just then Renee spotted Mona. "Baby, there you are! I've been so worried about you! Mommy's here to take you home where you belong!  
What in the world are you doing down here and where did you get that filthy looking bell?"  
  
"That's a fifteen hundred year old family heirloom, not a filthy bell." Lucretzia said as she stood,. She knew that Michael wouldn't say anything but there was no way that she was going to let someone get away with calling one of her best friend's family heirlooms a filthy bell. So what if it could use a bit of a shining?  
  
"Who are..." Renee started to say but stopped in shock when she realized that the woman who had just reproved her was more than a bit unusual. Renee could almost see through her and her clothing seemed to be slipping through various decades of fashion with alarming frequency.  
And there were other wierd things that she was noticing now as she started to look around the room. There was another man, one she could also almost see through and.... The little girl that her daughter was standing next to certainly wasn't dressed in any fashion that a modern child would wear. And the ass and the chicken....  
  
"Mona, sweetie, come to Mommy and we're going to go home now."  
Renee said as she motioned for her daughter to come to her, backing towards the door as she did so.  
  
"I don't think that's such a good idea right now." Mary said. Oh,  
this wasn't going well at all and she could see that Antubis was getting ready to add his two cents to the matter as well. "Mona, maybe you better show your mother what you can do now. She might understand if she can see it."  
  
Mona nodded, raising the wand and looking for a likely target. It probably would be best if she didn't change her mother into something. She would be grounded forever if she did that and then how would she take witch lessons?  
  
"Hey, they're getting the halls fixed! I've really got to knock off now and...." As Johnny B. Goode appeared in the doorway, Mona swished the wand. A moment later, she clapped her hands in delight as she scurried over and picked up the frog. Finally a frog!  
  
"Mona?" Renee stared down at the frog in her daughter's hands in shock not quite able to believe what she had just seen. How.  
'I would be happy to explain all about that.' Antubis said as he stood once more.  
  
What in the.... Renee's eyes widened as she spotted the anteater.  
Her legs buckled and she screamed as she crumpled to the ground in a dead faint.  
  
"Well, at least we won't have to hear Jesse saying that we could be sued for that." Chris whispered to Hook. 


	47. chapter 47

Lona felt herself drifting somewhere, she wasn't really sure where.  
All she really knew or cared about was that it was soft and warm. Warm.  
It had been so long since she had felt really warm. Suddenly she heard a noise, intruding in the cozy nest she was resting in. She didn't know what it was but she felt the noise drawing her up and still further up.  
  
"Lona?" Elmer whispered as he looked down at her. Her eyelids had twitched. She was sure that they had twitched. He gently cuddled the baby against him, trying as hard as he could to soothe its soft whimperings.  
"Lona?" She had been sleeping for hours now. Why wasn't she waking up?  
  
"Elmer?" Lona slowly opened her eyes, memories of what had occurred that day coming rushing back along with consciousness. A hand reached down, feeling of her stomach as panic filled her eyes. Her baby, where was her baby? "Elmer?" Did something happen to the baby or maybe it was only a dream? Tears stung her eyes as that thought hit her. No matter how unexpected and strange the pregnancy was, she had wanted that baby and.  
She started to try to pull herself into a sitting position but couldn't quite manage it. "Elmer, please tell me that the baby's okay and that I didn't just dream that...."  
"Just stay still, okay?" Elmer told her quietly. "Someone here's been waiting a little too long to meet you." He reached out, gently tucking the baby into Lona's arms.  
Lona stared in shock at the little bundle for a moment, not really sure what to do, not even sure that she should be trusted to hold a baby.  
She hadn't really done it before but.... She reached out and gently touched the baby's cheek with one finger, causing the little one to look up at her for a moment before it started to whimper softly once more.  
  
"I think that it maybe wants to eat. That's what Mary said,  
anyway." Elmer said softly as he moved over to the bed, raising Lona's head and shoulders up slightly so she was resting against his chest. He didn't know if she would object to that or not but he just wanted to hold her, to reassure himself that she was okay after how close he had came to losing her.  
  
"It? You mean you didn't bother to check to see if we have a boy or a girl?" Lona fumbled with the buttons on her blouse, grateful that she had worn something that she could at least open a bit easier today.  
"I wanted to wait for you." Elmer reached down and helped her with the last few buttons, turning his head slightly as she unfastened the silky fabric beneath.  
  
"I hope you know how to do this because I sure don't." Lona whispered to the baby as she cuddled the baby close to her breast and was relieved a moment latter when she felt the little one latch on and then heard soft swallowing sounds. She looked down at the baby, watching it eat as the size of the situation that they were in suddenly hit her. A baby.  
She had really had a baby, a baby that had been fathered by Elmer. How could she.... She didn't know anything about babies! How could she suddenly have one when she didn't know how to take care of it or.  
Clothes, diapers, all of that baby stuff that she had seen friends purchasing over the years. She didn't have any of it! She felt herself starting to hyperventilate slightly as she thought of more and more things that the baby would need and....  
  
"Lona, calm down. What's wrong?" Elmer shook his head slightly.  
He couldn't believe that he was actually having to be the one to tell someone to calm down for a change.  
  
"We don't...." She looked down at the baby once more, wanting to make sure that this entire situation was really happening. Yes, there was definitely a baby there and even if she wasn't nursing it at the moments,  
various aches and pains were pointing out all too clearly that she had just given birth. "We're not ready for a baby! There are things you have to have, things you have to know...." She suddenly felt herself starting to cry. "The baby's going to end up sleeping in a drawer or a box or...."  
  
"Lona?" Elmer honestly hadn't seen her this freaked since they ended up in that morgue back in the Old Kingdom for the first time. He started to gently rock her back and forth, trying to calm her. "Lona, they have stores, you know. Stores full of baby things. And you're going to be here for awhile. Hook and Chris want to watch you and make sure everything's okay. I'll take care of getting all of the baby stuff. Don't worry about it."  
  
"You'll...." Lona looked at Elmer in surprise as if she didn't quite understand what he was saying.  
  
"Lona, I'm not going to leaving you to raise this baby on your own.  
It's my baby too, remember? I'm going to stay with you and take care of both of you. I love you." Okay, maybe it wasn't very fancy and Elmer was sure that he could have done a bit better if he had had time to plan it out a bit more but maybe a simple declaration of his feelings would be enough.  
He leaned down and gently kissed her forehead before wrapping his arms around hers so that both of them were holding the baby now. "I love both of you. So, do you think you want to find what the baby is so we can stop calling it, it?" 


	48. chapter 48

Lona hesitated for a moment before adjusting her hold on the baby slightly, reaching out and loosening the blankets. She still couldn't quite bring herself to believe it. She had really had a baby. She had never really thought about having kids before, had pretty much concluded that her chances for having one were over anyway. And now, suddenly here was this baby, resting in her arms. She looked up at Elmer hesitantly before glancing down at the baby. She still wasn't sure about how things would work out with him but.... No, she wasn't going to let herself think about anything like that at the moment. She was just going to focus on the baby. She nudged the blankets aside a little and started down at the tiny body.  
  
"She's so small," Lona whispered as she surveyed the baby.  
Fingers and toes. It looked like all of them were there, like all of the parts were in the right places and in working order. "She's so small,  
though." Lona repeated as a bit of fear crept in once more. She had just assumed that if a pregnancy was so odd as to happen overnight that it must surely count as a full term pregnancy but it suddenly occurred to her that maybe it didn't. "Elmer, did someone check her?" She demanded as she anxiously ran her eyes over her little girl again, looking for any sign of potential problems. Would she know what might be a problem, though? It wasn't like she had studied anything having to do with pediatrics since med school and.... she shook her head as she thought of it. Here she was a doctor and she couldn't even tell if something was wrong with her own child.  
Oh, this was never, ever going to....  
  
"Lona, calm down. Hook and my dad have seen her. They say she's fine." He didn't think that Lona needed to know that he had also asked the anteater to take a glance as well. Suddenly he stopped as what Lona had said sunk in. "She? It's a girl?" he whispered.  
  
Lona nodded, pulling the blankets snuggly around the baby once more. She had finished nursing and was now resting contentedly against her mother's breast, her eyes closed and her little fingers wrapped around one of Elmer's fingers. She felt herself giggling slightly as she watched that, sinking back into Elmer's embrace a bit. Okay, he did act like a child an awful lot of the time but it was just so cute to watch him like that. Maybe things would be okay? She was almost afraid to let herself hope for that but....  
  
"Lona, I love you and I promise I'm not going to leave you and our little girl or do anything to hurt either of you, okay?" Elmer said as he leaned down and gently kissed her. "I was so scared. I thought that I was going to lose you, lose both of you." He kissed her once more. "Please,  
don't ever scare me like that again, okay? I promise that I'm never going to do anything that could do this again, nothing that could make you have to go through that."  
  
Lona rolled her eyes slightly as she listened to Elmer. Really,  
was he honestly expecting her to believe that he would willingly give up sex or.... Suddenly she felt a cold feeling wash over her. If he was serious, honestly how long would it be before he found someone else,  
someone stronger who could give him things, who could.... She felt herself starting to cry softly as she thought of it, of being left alone. Okay,  
she had always known that any relationship with Elmer would end that way,  
of course. The age difference was just so large. Once he saw someone younger, someone he had more in common with, he would quickly loose his fascination with her. The thought of it hurt her all the same though and the baby.... Would he even want anything to do with the baby once he....  
  
"Lona, I swear I love you." Elmer whispered as he looked down at her. How many times did he have to say that until she would believe it.  
He felt a bit of frustration starting to build. Why did she think so badly of him, think that he would hurt her when all he had ever done was repeatedly declare his love for her. With a shake of his head, he forced that frustration back, though. Okay, he didn't really understand why Lona didn't seem to get that he really meant it when he said he loved her but if she didn't, then he would just have to keep telling her that again and again until she finally believed it, was sure that he wouldn't leave her.  
"I love you, Lona, and I'm going to keep saying that until you understand it." He whispered into her ear as he cuddled her and the baby close.  
Whatever it took, he was going to be there for her and they were going to be a family. 


	49. chapter 49

"Dr. Havens?" Carrie Von Trier had been drifting around the parking lot for what felt like forever, searching for someone who might have a clue as to what was going on. Those fireworks were making her very suspicious not to mention the good, actually edible and free food that was being passed out. She just couldn't see the city spending money on this and she certainly couldn't see Jesse spending it. She finally caught sight of the older doctor and hurried over to him. He was the first person that she had spotted that might have enough seniority to have a clue as to what was going on. "What in the world is going on here?" Okay, the building wasn't shaking anymore which she supposed was a good thing but still.  
And was that the hospital logo that was now crawling along the ground as if it was trying to escape?  
  
"I have no idea what's going on here." Henry said with a shake of his head as he looked from Carrie to the building and back again. "Have you seen Dr. James? This is supposed to be his job."  
  
Henry shook his head. He had no clue what was going on here but if the building was structurally sound, they really ought to see about doing something about getting the patients back inside where they belonged.  
"Come on," He motioned for Carrie to follow him towards the building.  
They needed to find Dr. James or Dr. Hook, someone who could tell them what in the world was going on and if it was safe or not to move the patients back inside. As they headed inside, Dr. Gupta joined them.  
  
"Has anyone seen Elmer anywhere?" He asked, a bit of anxiousness in his voice. He had been searching everywhere in the crowd for his friend with no sign of him.  
  
"No. I haven't seen him anywhere. I haven't seen Lona or Chris either. Or Doctor Hook." Carrie said as she looked at the other two with worry. When the building had been shaking, her entire focus had been on staying on her feet but now that things seemed relatively secure, worry for her friends was definitely building. "You don't think that they were in the basement, do you?" One earthquake had already triggered a collapse down there and this one seemed like it was much worse. If....  
  
"Well, we'll know soon enough." Dr. Havens said as he moved to Otto's desk and started fumbling around with the intercom trying to figure out how to activate it.  
  
As he fiddled around looking for the correct button to hit, Carrie walked over to the elevator and tapped the down button. Worry for her friends was definitely growing by the minute. Okay, she knew she wasn't the bravest nurse in the hospital but if they needed help.... Suddenly she frowned, looking up at the light on the elevator. It seemed to be stuck between their floor and the basement. She shook her head as she turned towards Henry. The hospital really, really needed to do something about those elevators. Maybe they could fire Stegman and use his salary for repairs?  
  
"Don't tell me that thing's broke again," Dr. Gupta said with a shake of his head as he noted the frustrated look on Carrie's face. "Jammed on me the other day and I thought I would never get out." He moved over to join Henry at Otto's desk. "Here. Jesse got something put in for situations like this. Don't know why he didn't just pay to fix the thing instead." He hit a button and a moment later the elevator started to move upwards once more, the doors swinging open a second later.  
  
"AAAAAAAAAHHHHHHH!!" Carrie jumped back with a scream as two bodies came tumbling out of the elevator.  
  
"Dr. Hook? Dr. Draper?" Henry asked as the two figures started to pull themselves off the floor, fumbling around to get their clothes in order as they did so. He shook his head as he looked at them. In the elevator of all places. The things that the young could get up to.  
  
"Dr. Havens." Hook said slowly trying to project a professional air, not the air of a little boy caught with his pants down. Pants. That reminded him of something. He reached down with one hand trying to discreetly zip himself back up once more. "Why don't we give it a few more minutes and then we can start moving the patients back into the hospital?"  
  
"You're sure the building is sound?" Dr. Havens asked quietly, a smile on his face at the embarrassed looking expressions of his colleagues.  
It was just so much fun to see how the young could act sometimes. And he had to admit that Hook and Chris did make a good couple.  
  
"I think our earthquake problem's fixed for good," Hook said quietly. As he talked, his mind was running over the situation. His room was definitely out with all of the people currently in the basement and it looked like the elevator was out too. Maybe Dr. James' office? He obviously wouldn't be needing it at the moment.  
  
"Hey, have you seen Elmer anywhere?" Dr. Gupta asked as he came over. He was trying rather unsuccessfully to hold back laughter at what had just happened. When Elmer found out about that.... And in the elevator too, of all places.  
  
"Elmer's down in the sleep lab with Lona. I don't think that you want to disturb them right now." Chris said, a slight hint of laughter creeping into her voice as she thought of the situation that Elmer and Lona were currently in. How in the world were those two ever going to explain their sudden parenthood. "Hook, why don't we see about getting all of these people back inside where they belong?" The sooner that everyone was inside, the sooner that they could have the elevator to themselves once more. 


	50. chapter 50

Elmer felt like he could stay like that forever, just holding Lona and the baby snuggled in his arms, not really talking, just holding them and letting them feel how much that he loved them. A family. He couldn't believe that he suddenly had a family. Okay, he had had his dad but this was just different. And before the happenings of that night, he hadn't been really sure that his dad even cared for him so.... He reached down,  
letting the baby grasp one of his fingers in her tiny hand. How in the world could he have something to do with making something so perfect?  
  
"You're absolutely sure that she's alright?" Lona whispered as she looked down at the baby. She looked healthy enough but Lona just couldn't shake more than a little bit of worry. She had been so frightened that she was going to lose the baby and considering the amount of blood that she knew she had lost.... "Should she even be down here? Shouldn't she be upstairs in the nursery or something where they can keep an eye on her and see if anything's...." Panic, definite panic, was slipping into her voice now.  
  
"Lona, Hook and my dad both took a look at the baby. Believe me,  
she's fine." Elmer said softly as he gently kissed her forehead. He still wasn't quite able to believe that his normally cool, collected Lona was panicking this much. "And they thought that you might be more comfortable down here anyway." Elmer hesitated slightly now looking carefully at Lona before speaking once more. She still looked so pale and weak. He really,  
really wasn't sure if he should bring this up now or not.  
  
"Might as well tell me what's on your mind." Lona was starting to definitely tire but from the way Elmer was looking, it seemed that they had something likely serious to discuss first.  
  
"It's just.... What are we going to tell people about the baby?"  
Elmer said quietly. "They're going to be kind of surprised and well.  
What are you going to say about the father?"  
  
Lona wasn't really sure how to answer that question. She had been so frightened that she would lose the baby or have some other horrible thing happen that she had really had no time to consider explaining the situation. Of course, this was the hospital where a giant anteater roamed around at will and there were more than their fair share of earthquakes.  
How hard would it be to convince everyone that they had missed a pregnancy?  
If they could miss that anteater and he was much bigger.... The father though, that was the problem. Lona looked up at Elmer, not really sure what to say. He said that he loved her, that he wanted to take care of her and the baby but did he really mean it?  
  
"Lona, I love you and all I want to do is to take care of you and our baby." Elmer whispered as he leaned down and gently kissed her before bracing himself to continue speaking. "If you would rather not tell anyone though...." He closed his eyes to keep the tears that he felt starting to form from falling. He could feel his little girl's hand wrapped around his fingers. He didn't know how he could give that up if Lona didn't want him but at the same time, after how close he had came to losing her, how could he force her into a situation that she didn't want to be in? "It's up to you, okay? I won't say anything if you don't want me to."  
  
"Elmer?" Lona looked up at him with surprise. She had thought that he would be ready to boast about what had happened, that he had finally won her. He had been trying for long enough to do that, after all.  
Now when he had won he was trying to back out?  
  
"I love her." Elmer leaned down, pressing a kiss against the baby's soft little head before looking at Lona once more. "I love both of you and you don't know how happy I would be for us to be a family. If it isn't what you want, though.... I would never hurt you, Lona. I promise that I would never hurt you. So, if you don't want to tell anyone that I'm the father, then I'll go along with that, okay?" Elmer felt the tears starting to build to the point where he didn't think that he could hold them back anymore. He reached around, adjusting the pillows so that Lona could sit propped up in the bed before sliding out from behind her and standing. "Listen, one of Michael's friends sent some tea down for you to have when you woke up. I'm just going to go and get it together, okay?  
Just think about things."  
  
Elmer slumped to the floor as soon as he was out of sight of Lona,  
the tears starting to flow. The baby had been in his arms almost constantly since she was born and to walk away from her, to leave her like that even if she was with her mother.... And what would he do if Lona said no, that she didn't want him to admit to being the father? How could he stand to see his little girl every day but to never be able to tell anyone about her, to never be able to really be her daddy? On the other hand,  
though, how could he risk hurting Lona by insisting on claiming responsibility if that wasn't what Lona wanted. "Please, Lona." He whispered softly. "Please, we could be so happy together. Just give me a chance." 


	51. chapter 51

Lona shook her head slowly as she heard Elmer start to cry. She supposed that he thought that she couldn't hear him but each sob was like a little knife, cutting at her. She blinked her eyes fiercely, trying to hold her own tears back. She knew that her worries were perfectly legitimate, of course. It was one of the reasons that she had refused to get involved with Elmer in the first place. He was just so young and she was so far from young at this point that it wasn't even funny. Why in the world would he stay with her when he could be with someone his own age,  
someone prettier, someone he had things in common with? She would be dumped like yesterdays' news. She could handle that, of course, but the baby was an innocent. How could she put her little girl through something like that? A tear slipped down her cheek as she thought of where she and the baby would be in a few years when Elmer grew tired of them. How could she explain to a child that it wasn't her fault that her daddy didn't want her anymore, how could she put her baby though that pain? Better for her to never know what having a father was like than to....  
  
'What makes you think Elmer's going to walk out on you, though?' a voice inside softly whispered. 'He had plenty of chances today and he's still here. You've done plenty, said plenty to him to make him hate you.  
Didn't work. He loves...'  
  
"He's too young." Lona hissed under her breath. "He can't know what love is! He's too young. I don't even know and I'm...."  
  
'You would if you opened your eyes.' the voice in her head continued.  
  
"He can't really...." Lona looked down at the baby once more as she struggled with herself. Her little eyes were open, staring up with her with such and innocent, wide eyed gaze. How could she let her daughter be hurt like she knew that they inevitably would be in she got involved with Elmer? Okay, maybe if she just had herself to consider, she would have been tempted to give in, to let him in despite her fears but with the baby to consider.....  
  
"I love you," she whispered as she leaned down and pressed a kiss into her daughter's soft, wispy hair. "You and I will be fine on our own,  
you know. We don't really need...." And he walked away now, didn't he?  
He managed to do that. And if he could do it once then he could do it again, couldn't he? And at a time when the baby would understand, would know what she was losing. Better to lose Elmer now when she couldn't know what a father's love was than later when....  
  
"We'll be fine without him. We don't need him." Lona whispered more forcefully this time just as the baby started to whimper as if tapping into her mother's disturbed emotions.  
  
"What's wrong?" She whispered softly, adjusting her blouse once more and cuddling the baby against her breast, thanking she might still be hungry. No, definitely not hungry. And not wet either, she didn't think although it was a bit hard to tell though the blankets. "What's wrong?"  
she whispered again, worry starting to fill her eyes now as the baby begin to fuss more. What if something was wrong with her after all and.... She bit her lip, trying to force her fears back as she struggled to get the baby settled down.  
  
Lona felt tears of fright slipping down her cheeks as she struggled to pull herself over to the edge of the bed, swinging her legs over the side and sitting perfectly still as a wave of dizziness washed over her.  
She had a feeling that she probably shouldn't move, that it wasn't exactly smart but if something was wrong with her baby, if anything happened to the baby.... She struggled to hold on to the IV pole with one hand as she shifted the baby more securely in her other arm, somehow pulling herself upright.  
  
It felt like the door was a million miles away but no sooner had Lona started moving towards it than the baby's whimpering diminished into almost peaceful coos. Lona didn't dare turn around though. What if it was a bad sign that she wasn't still whimpering? Oh, this was just never going to work out, the baby needed a totally different set of parents and.  
Suddenly Lona felt her legs starting to buckle and she barely had time to let out a scream before the ground came rushing towards her.  
  
"Lona!" She suddenly heard a voice calling her name and opened her eyes to find Elmer there, swooping her up and firmly depositing her back in the bed once more.  
  
"What in the world were you doing?" He demanded as he made sure that she hadn't pulled the IV line out.  
  
"I.... She just started whimpering and....." Lona felt herself starting to cry as she thought of what might have happened if Elmer hadn't.... But Elmer was always there, wasn't he, trying to take care of her. And... She looked in shock at him sitting there now, tears drying on his face as he held their baby tightly in his arms, rocking her slightly.  
And his shoulder.... She could see the torn, burnt flesh now and blood slowing starting to seep from the wound.  
  
"Elmer?" she whispered softly. That had to hurt but he had picked her up, had carried her back to bed without even flinching. She closed her eyes for a moment as she tried to think. Seeing their baby cuddled in Elmer's arms, no longer whimpering but cooing up at her daddy.... Was she really going to spare the baby any pain by taking Elmer away from her now or would she just end up with a pain that she wouldn't understand?  
  
Elmer looked down at Lona, not trusting himself to speak, afraid that he would say the wrong thing, knowing that words really couldn't express his feelings properly anyway. He moved over to the bed once more,  
cuddling Lona and the baby close. Okay, maybe she was planning to tell him that she didn't want him and didn't want him to have anything to do with the baby but until she actually said that couldn't he just hold her and pretend that they were a family?  
  
"Elmer?" Lona blinked back tears as she looked at him. Okay, she still felt like she was making a serious mistake and that Elmer was much to young to understand love or the commitment a baby required but.... "What do you think of Emma for a name?" 


	52. chapter 52

"Emma?" Elmer said quietly, worried that he had misunderstood what Lona had said. Or maybe he was letting himself read to much into it if she really had said Emma. Did she even know that was his mom's name?  
  
"Would you like it?" Lona asked again, a bit of hesitation slipping into her tone now. Maybe that had been a mistake. She knew that Elmer's mom had walked out on them so maybe he wouldn't want to name the baby for her but....  
  
"You know that was my mom's name, right?" Elmer said quietly as he snuggled Lona and the baby closer against him, fighting not to react to thinking about his mother, about the fact that she wasn't there and wouldn't get to see her only grandchild.  
  
Lona nodded, worried that she might have hurt Elmer with her suggestion. That was the last thing that she had wanted to do. "It was just an idea. If you don't want...."  
  
Elmer didn't really know what to say. The more he thought about it, the more he definitely liked the name but.... Suddenly something hit him and he looked down at Lona in surprise. If she was willing to name the baby after his mom, did that mean that she was wanting him to be a part of the baby's life after all, that she was okay with letting people know that he was the father? He couldn't bring himself to ask, though. He was too afraid that he might be wrong. Thinking of his mom had jus brought the pin of losing her back even stronger than before. He didn't think he could stand it if he had to lose his little girl too.  
  
Lona barely was able to keep from giggling at the sight of the expression on his face. Giggling, she wasn't sure when the last time she had done that was. Okay, Elmer could be immature but at least he could make her laugh if she could get past annoyance with him.  
  
"She loves you, you know." she said softly as she looked up at him. "Probably because you haven't tried giving her someone's head yet."  
  
"Hey, it was just a joke," Elmer protested with a hurt look as he looked down at her. "And you were going to do worse to get back at me."  
  
Lona thought for a moment before speaking. Okay, what she had had in mind had been worse. That stupid head wouldn't have fooled her for a moment but her idea for Elmer.... "True." she said as she smiled up at him. "I'll let you off the hook for the head, okay, if you promise never to do something like that again. Were you reading about Van Gogh? And I certainly hope that you returned that head to the morgue where it belongs."  
  
Elmer wasn't even going to try to answer that question. He didn't know how the head had vanished from his locker the first time and he certainly didn't know where it had disappeared the second time either.  
Things had been a bit weird, though. Maybe the head somehow got returned to its rightful owner? He should probably check with the anteater about that. That creature seemed to know a bit about the head situation, after all.  
  
"So, what do you think of the name?" Lona asked, snapping Elmer back to the situation at hand.  
  
"You're okay with it?" Elmer said hesitantly. Okay, his hopes were slowly creeping up but he was still afraid, nervous that if he said too much it would upset Lona for some reason and spoil the entire thing.  
  
"You're her father, you know. If you're okay with her being named after your mother...." Lona was still a bit worried that Elmer wasn't exactly ready for parenthood, that he was too young to know what he was getting into and when he finally found something better and realized that his feelings for her were just a crush he would chose to walk away. She dimly recalled some of what had happened that evening, though, how Elmer had tried to protect her, how frightened he had been that something might happen to her and their baby. And he had been there when she woke up,  
holding their daughter as if she was made of china, the look of love in his eyes almost palpable. That had to count for something.  
  
Elmer didn't speak for a moment, felt like he had been suddenly rendered mute. He reached down, letting the baby take his finger in her tiny fist as he thought. Okay, his mom had hurt him but that definitely didn't mean that he had ever stopped loving her or wishing that things could be different. He was barely able to hold back tears as he thought of that, of how they would never have a chance to change things now. "I think I would like Emma," he said softly.  
  
Both of them were silent for a little while, just staring down at the baby as Lona lay firmly snuggled in Elmer's arms. Suddenly he spoke.  
"What about Eloise for a middle name?" he asked her hesitantly, a tiny bit afraid that she might get upset with him for suggesting something instead of leaving it to her. "And we really ought to do something with Mary." If not for that little girl and her brother, neither one of them would be here now and he wouldn't exactly want to be here either.  
  
"Emma Eloise Mary." Okay. Three names but two were short so it wasn't too bad. Lona thought about it for a moment before speaking once more. She wasn't exactly sure how to ask this, wasn't sure if she should even ask it. Emma was likely the only baby she would ever have, after all.  
It was only fair for her to have her mother's last name but still....  
  
"What about her last name, now?" Lona asked Elmer softly.  
  
"It's your decision." Elmer told her as he leaned down and kissed Lona on the forehead. "She's my daughter now matter what her last name is,  
you know. Whatever name will make you happy is fine by me." 


	53. chapter 53

Louis frowned as he dug around in the supply cabinets, looking for something else to put on Elmer's neck. He'd found several cloves of garlic easily enough but there had to be something that would also help. Now what had he heard was good for repelling vampires.  
  
He shook his head a moment later as it hit him what he had been thinking. He couldn't believe that he was now thinking of vampires as if they were real when only a few hours ago he would have dismissed the supernatural completely. Wasn't that what the entire Keepers group was about, after all, dismissing the supernatural? Of course, now that he thought about it, the Keepers had been Jesse's idea and since he apparently did have some sort of magical power.... Okay, apparently his magical power could be dismissed pretty easily though according to his former teachers so it probably didn't contradict the Keepers thing very much. With another shake of his head and a slight laugh, he started to leave the kitchen and head back for the sleep lab, garlic in hand.  
  
As he started to leave, his thoughts turned to the situation in the sleep lab, to his son, Lona and that baby. He stopped and sat down in the nearest chair instead as the current situation hit him fully once more. He had tried not to think about it while tending to Lona but now.... He had always had a feeling that Elmer's feelings for Lona were much more than a crush although he had always tried to convince himself that he wasn't really serious about her. He hadn't wanted to see Elmer get hurt. He hadn't managed to protect Elmer from any other hurts, after all. The least he felt he could do was to protect him from that one.  
  
Elmer getting hurt, that was the one thing that was causing a problem with him fully and wholeheartedly embracing the situation with Elmer and his claim that he was the baby's father. He couldn't see any way that could be possible, at least not unless the laws of biology had been changed without someone thinking to notify him. After all, Lona had never shown any signs of returning Elmer's affections and she definitely hadn't nine months before. The only thing that he could think of was that either the father had hurt Lona or had abandoned her and the baby. If the father had walked out on her, he could definitely see Elmer deciding on an impulse to claim fatherhood, especially with what he had been through with Emma abandoning him as a child. Louis shook his head as he thought of that. He still had a hard time with that, with how he could still love Emma even after she had hurt his sons so much.  
  
Louis didn't even want to think of how his son would have reacted if he found out that the father had hurt Lona although given the fact that she had apparently kept the pregnancy a secret, he had to admit that it was a very good possibility that that's what had happened. He shuddered slightly as he thought about it. Lona was a good friend, had been there for him when Edgar died, had always tried to be supportive. She hadn't even been halfway as harsh with Elmer as he knew she could have been. The very thought that someone could have hurt her enraged him and definitely made him want to go along with Elmer's claim to be the baby's father.  
Okay, he might not have provided the best example in the world but he knew that his son would be a good father, one that any child would be lucky to have. Even after how much he had been hurt, Elmer still had so much love that he was just trying so hard to find someone to share it with. Louis shook his head ruefully as he thought of that. He didn't think it had ever occurred to Lona exactly how serious Elmer's feelings towards her were.  
He wanted to go along with things, no one could imagine how much he wanted to go along with things. He knew that Elmer would be a good father and finally having someone who would love him for who he was would probably be the best thing to ever happen to his son. He loved Lona too and although he would never let either her or Elmer know it, deep down he had been a bit sad that she didn't feel the same way about his son. When Elmer had tricked Lona into coming for Christmas, it had been their best holiday since Edgar had died. Normally, Elmer either spent Christmas being as quite as possible so he wouldn't be noticed or bouncing around hoping for some sort of attention. The Christmas with Lona though, he didn't know why but it seemed like everything had just happened perfectly.  
  
'You could have that again, you know.' a voice whispered softly inside his head. 'Just forget the doubts about the baby and accept things.  
You think last Christmas was nice? Wouldn't it be even better to have Christmas with a grandchild?'  
  
Louis wanted to listen but there was a problem in letting himself give in to his desire. If Elmer wasn't the father, what if Lona decided to cut off contact between him and the baby once she was back on her feet and sure that she could manage things independently once more? If he went along with things and let his son fall in love with that baby only to lose it, if he let himself fall in love with the baby....  
  
'Coward.' the voice taunted in response his thoughts.  
  
Okay, maybe it was the coward's way but how could he justify exposing his son to anymore pain if it could be avoided? Elmer had just been hurt so much. If he could talk to Lona or arrange to do some sort of DNA test.... As he thought of that, the idea begin to blossom in his mind.  
DNA tests weren't hard to do now. All he would need was a swab from the baby and....  
  
'Wouldn't let your son know what you're thinking if I were you.' a voice said and Louis looked up to see the anteater suddenly poking his head out from behind one of the large hospital freezers.  
  
"What are you doing down here?" he demanded as he glared at the animal. He still wasn't sure exactly what that thing was.  
  
'Packing a few things.' Antubis informed him. 'As for the baby, I wouldn't tell your son that you're thinking he isn't the father, not if you want to keep him speaking to you. Besides, I saw the conception myself.  
He's definitely to blame.' When Antubis noticed the shocked look on Louis's face, he continued. 'If you want, I'll be happy to tell you all about it.' 


	54. chapter 54

"Here, why don't you try to rest for a little while, okay?" Elmer said quietly. He noticed that Lona's eyelids were starting to slip closed despite her best efforts and he could feel her body starting to sag back against him a bit more. "Do you want me to get my dad to bring down something for you to eat?" He had to sternly tell himself not to panic at the sight of Lona laying there so weak and pale looking. Honestly, she had just given birth and with the amount of blood that she had lost, how was she supposed to look?  
  
"Your father?" Louis. Lona suddenly found herself wide awake once more. She hadn't really let herself thing about Elmer's father and how in the world she was going to explain what had happened between them and the baby. She hadn't actually believed what was happening deep down until the moment when Elmer put that little bundle into her arms. She looked down at her daughter, who was gently nuzzling at her breast once more, nursing again. How was she ever going to explain this to Louis? He was her friend and he trusted her. And now look at what she had done. Made love with his son and....  
  
"Lona?" Elmer looked down at her in puzzlement for a moment,  
trying to figure out why she looked so funny before realizing that the mention of his dad had been what had sit her off. He shook his head slightly as he thought of it, recalling Lona's previous mentions of his father and her use of him as an excuse not to get involved. "Lona, my dad already knows about the baby. He's held her and everything." Elmer paused for a moment. Maybe he shouldn't have told Lona that. It might upset her that his dad had gotten to hold the baby before her, after all. "Was that okay, that I let him hold the baby? Because if it wasn't...."  
  
Lona nodded even as fears that she thought were faded came back full force. Louis had been such a good friend to her down through the years. Sometimes, it had felt like he was her only friend. She didn't even want to imagine how upset he would have to be at her for this.  
  
"Lona, could I ask why you think my dad's going to be mad at you?"  
Elmer asked curiously. "You know, I did have a little something to do with this too."  
  
"Your father's my friend, Elmer, and...." How could she explain things in a way that wouldn't hurt or upset him?  
  
"I know. You would think that would make you feel better about things, not worse. I mean, who would my dad prefer me to get involved with, someone he already knows and likes or some stranger that he might hate? What's the big deal?" Elmer had really never understood Lona's issue with his dad being her friend and how they worked together. It almost made as little sense as her issues with his age. It wasn't like he had been able to pick when he was born, after all.  
  
"Elmer, there are things that friends just don't do and sleeping with your friend's only son...." Oh, there was just no way that she was going to be able to explain things to Elmer without upsetting him.  
  
"It was my dream, you know. If you wanted to, you could blame the entire thing on me." Elmer felt a slight bit of nervousness slipping in.  
Was Lona reconsidering letting him tell people about the baby and the fact that he was the father? "Lona?"  
  
Lona looked from Elmer to the baby barely able to keep from crying.  
She just wanted to forget all of her worries about the situation, to just let herself be happy in the here and now but....  
  
"Listen, I don't know what I'm going to have to do to you to convince you that I really love you and that things will be okay but I'm going to stick around until you believe that, alright?" Elmer whispered softly as he leaved down and kissed Lona's forehead. He could do this, he knew that he could do this without making Lona mad if he tried. He had almost succeeded before. He just had to move carefully. "Lona, I promise that my dad isn't mad at you. He was just worried about making sure that you were going to be okay. He's really happy about the baby. You don't need to worry about that."  
  
"You're just so young, Elmer. You don't need to be tied down to me and to a child right now. You're...." Lona shook her head as she looked up at him. Didn't he understand? She was trying to do what was best for him. That had been what she had been trying to do all along.  
  
"Don't I get a say in what I need?" Elmer demanded. "Lona, what I need is you and our baby. I love you. Please, won't you just give me a chance?" 


	55. chapter 55

"I don't think we ought to be down here." Carrie told Sonny as the two of them headed for the sleep lab. All of the patients were once more in their rooms, snug and secure, well all of them except for Peter Rickman,  
Sally Druse and Mona Klingerman. Carrie was still a bit worried about all of them and where they might have gotten to, especially Peter and little Mona. Hook had reassured her that they were fine but she still wasn't quite sure.  
  
"Hey, Elmer's had lots of time with Lona by now. I'm sure he's going to be needing to be rescued from her. He'll probably be thrilled to see us." Sonny said with a slight laugh. Okay, he knew that Elmer would kill for time alone with Lona but he also knew that when his friend had more than a few minutes alone with the older female doctor, he always blew things and got into a ton of trouble. Honestly, he didn't know why Elmer didn't just give up and find someone his own age. Lona was gorgeous, of course, but Sonny definitely didn't think she was worth all of the trouble that Elmer going after her caused.  
  
"Lona isn't that bad to Elmer." Carrie said as she shot a look over at Sonny. Okay, maybe Elmer did annoy Dr. Massingale a bit but if Elmer would just TRY behaving.... And Carrie deep down wasn't entirely sure that some of Lona's annoyance with the younger doctor might not be an act, well the annoyance that didn't stem from things like Elmer's stupid stunt with the head. After a moment, her thoughts moved from Elmer and Lona's relationship or what passed for one to what was going on in the hospital. "Sonny, do you have any idea what happened, with them evacuating the hospital and all? And I never did see Elmer or Lona outside. Do you think they're alright?"  
  
"I'm sure they're fine. Hook and Chris didn't seem too upset or anything, after all." Of course, after a moment, he realized that Hook and Chris had kind of had a bit of a distracting situation on their hands with getting caught in the elevator and all. Even if something had happened down in the basement, they might have ended up temporarily having it slip their minds. He felt a bit of definite worry creeping in. If anything happened to Lona, he didn't even want to think about how Elmer would react. "Come on." He sped up his pace as they moved towards the sleep lab. If something had happened, they needed to get down there and help.  
  
"Lona? Elmer?" Carrie edged around Sonny as they reached the lap door and pushed it open a bit. Surely nothing had happened to either of them but even as she tried to reassure herself she recalled the fact that they hadn't seen Elmer's father for quite some time either. What was going on?  
  
"Hey, are the two of you alright in here?" Sonny called, his worry growing too when someone didn't immediately answer.  
  
"Shhhhhhssssshhhh!" Elmer whispered loudly as he eased the now sleeping Lona back onto the pillows and gathered the baby into his arms once more. He was glad that she had finally fallen back to sleep. She had been so upset and worried over his father and the situation with the baby that it wasn't even funny. She definitely needed some more rest. Maybe when his dad got back he could do something to reassure her that he was okay with things. He really didn't know why in the world Lona was so worried about that to start with. His dad already liked her. Why would he have any problems with the two of them getting together?  
  
"Elmer, are you two okay?" Carrie asked as she peered through the doorway, her eyes widening slightly when she caught sight of Lona laying tucked into bed, looking so obviously pale and ill, the IV line in her arm still dripping blood into her veins. "Elmer, what happened to her?" She moved forward, worry written all over her face for her friend.  
  
"Wait a minute." Suddenly Sonny noticed the baby that was snuggled in Elmer's arms, something that Carrie had missed. "Elmer, where did you get that?"  
  
Carrie looked over as well, temporarily distracted from Lona. "A baby?" Why would Elmer have a baby in his arms? What sort of nutty stunt was he up to now? "Elmer, I think you better give me that baby this minute so I can put it back where it belongs!" Honestly, hadn't he learned anything from the incident with the head? Obviously not if he had amused himself borrowing a baby from somewhere for a joke. She just hoped that whatever prank Elmer was pulling wasn't to blame for Lona's current condition. "Elmer, hand that baby over! You can't just borrow babies like you borrowed that head! They have mothers that are going to be freaking out and...." Her frustration was definitely increasing now. "Hand it over!"  
  
"No! You'll faint and drop her or something!" Elmer said as he shot a look at Carrie. "And be quiet, okay? You're going to wake Lona up and she needs to sleep right now."  
  
"Elmer, where did that baby come from?" Sonny asked gently.  
Carrie getting ticked with Elmer obviously wasn't getting them any answers.  
Maybe some gentle persuasion would instead. He couldn't believe that Elmer tried another joke with Lona. Wouldn't he ever learn? "Listen,  
Elmer, if you borrowed it from upstairs in maternity, you really need to let us take it back now, okay? They've got all of the patients back in the rooms now and someone's going to notice that this baby's missing. You somehow managed to not get in trouble for the thing with the head. I don't think you're going to be so lucky if you borrowed a baby." New mothers are pretty touchy things, you know."  
  
"Tell me about it." Elmer said as he looked down at Lona, starting to smile slightly as he thought of the situation. "I didn't borrow the baby, I promise. She's supposed to be down here." Was it okay for him to tell them about the situation, that he was the baby's father? Lona had said it was okay but he had really been hoping for her to be awake before the time came to tell anyone the happy news.  
  
"Elmer, babies are not supposed to be down in the basement. I think you better just hand that one over to me before you get in a lot of trouble, okay?" Carrie said gently now, keeping the annoyance out of her tone to keep from freaking Elmer if she could.  
  
"Well, this one is. Lona'd kill me if I took her anywhere else,  
especially while she's sleeping." Elmer told them.  
  
"Lona? Elmer, you're not trying to say that this baby's Lona's,  
are you?" Sonny asked, shooting a concerned look over at Carrie as he did so. He had seen Lona the day before and she definately hadn't looked in the least bit pregnant, let alone about to give birth.  
  
"Yeah. And...." Elmer paused for a moment, not sure how to announce this. He really wished that he could wake Lona up to help him but he knew that she definitely needed her rest right now. "Emma's Lona's.  
And she's mine too." He said it quickly, afraid that if he let himself think for too long that he would be too nervous to say anything.  
  
"What?" Carrie looked at Elmer in shock. He was claiming that.  
She motioned frantically for Sonny to back out into the hallway once more. "Elmer, we'll be right back, okay? You just stay right there with Lona and don't let anything happen to that baby."  
  
As soon as they were out of earshot, Carrie spoke once more.  
"Sonny, go and find Louis fast!" From the way Elmer was looking, it was obvious that he totally believed that that baby was his and Lona's but Carrie knew that was definitely not possible. Poor Elmer. She shook her head sadly as she thought of it, realizing what must have happened. He had obviously had a nervous breakdown. 


	56. chapter 56

"Elmer?" Carrie looked at the young doctor with a worried expression as she entered the room once more. Elmer was holding the baby cuddled close and cooing to it. From all appearances, he looked every inch the proud father. Carrie sadly shook her head as he thought about it. The head incident had been bad, of course, but for Elmer to do something like this, to take a baby and become absolutely convinced that it was his and Lona's.... "Elmer, why don't you give me the baby, alright?" She said softly. Emma. He had said the baby's name was Emma. Wasn't that his mom's name? Carrie remembered hearing that she had died recently. Was that what had triggered this, both Elmer's current snap from reality and maybe the head incident as well?  
  
"No, you'll faint and drop her." Elmer shook his head. Did Carrie honestly think that he was just going to hand Emma over to her, knowing that the nurse spent more time on the floor than she actually did working?  
One time, he had heard a doctor had even used Carrie for a doorstop.  
  
"Elmer, I just want to help you, okay?" Carrie said gently. She didn't want to risk upsetting him while he was holding the baby and even if he wasn't holding her, Carrie wouldn't want to upset him anyway. Okay, his head stunt had totally grossed her out but Carrie also knew how sweet and vulnerable Elmer could be at times. It broke her heart to see him like this, to see him looking down at that baby with such love in his eyes.  
Honestly, Elmer probably would be a really good father. If he would just find someone that would return his affections now. Carrie liked Lona and kind of suspected that deep down Lona might not be as opposed to Elmer as she said she was but she couldn't see her friend ever giving in to his approaches.  
  
Elmer watched Carrie, a bit puzzled by the expression on her face,  
like she was worried about something. Had he hurt her by his refusal to let her hold the baby? He certainly hadn't meant to! "Hey, Carrie, why don't you just sit down somewhere and I'll let you hold her, okay?" Elmer said. If Lona was awake, she would definitely tell him to stop being so overprotective but he just couldn't help it, not after how close he had come to losing both Lona and their baby. "You have to promise not to move,  
though," he told her firmly. "Lona would never forgive me if I let you hold the baby and you dropped her!"  
  
"Elmer, I've held babies before. I know what I'm doing." A bit of annoyance slipped into Carrie's voice, relief accompanying it at the same time though. Elmer was going to let her have the baby anyway. Surely once she got it safely away from Elmer, she could think of something, anything,  
to snap Elmer back to his senses. Seeing him like this just broke her heart. She hoped that Sonny could find Louis quickly. She knew it would upset him terribly, of course, seeing his son in this condition, but maybe there would be something that he could do for Elmer. Something that would snap him out of it.  
  
Elmer hesitated for a moment as Carrie settled into a chair. He didn't really want to let Emma out of his arms but he didn't want to upset Carrie either. Surely if she just stayed sitting down, it would be alright. He reached out, easing the blanket wrapped bundle into her arms.  
"Be careful!" He sternly warned her. "If you feel the least bit faint, just give her back!"  
  
"Elmer, I'm not going to faint." Carrie said, rolling her eyes slightly as she spoke. Elmer was hovering right at her shoulder, watching her carefully. Not good. "So, why don't you tell me what happened?"  
Maybe if she could distract Elmer with chatter he would move away from her and give her space to think. She definitely didn't want him to be so close where he could just grab the baby away from her. Where was everyone,  
anyway? Lona definitely looked pretty seriously ill. Surely Hook, Louis and Chris wouldn't have left her down here alone with Elmer in her condition!  
  
Elmer didn't speak for a moment, not sure of what he could tell Carrie without triggering more fainting. The anteater was definitely out along with ANY mention of the hospital's little haunting problem. He knew that even if he reassured Carrie that any ghosts were safely taken care of,  
that she would never manage to stay calm.  
  
"Lona ended up going into labor right before the earthquake hit and we got stuck." Elmer said, looking a bit nervously at Carrie, watching for sights of a possible fainting spell starting. Where in the world was his father? He knew his dad was way used to Carrie's fainting. "Listen, why don't you let me have the baby back now, okay?" Would the mention of blood be enough to send her heading to the ground once more? Elmer definitely didn't want to chance that.  
  
"No, we're fine. Go on. What happened?" Carrie knew that she couldn't let Elmer have the baby back at this point. Poor Elmer. The way he was talking, it sounded like he had totally convinced himself that the baby was really his child with Lona. Carrie had to struggle to keep from crying as she thought of it. She just hoped that someone would get down here soon. Elmer obviously needed help.  
  
"Luckily, Chris and Hook were able to get in and delivered the baby." Elmer frowned at Carrie refusing to hand Emma over but then shrugged it off as his attention was drawn to Lona once more. Even though she had woke up and had been able to talk to him, had been able to hold the baby, he was still very worried about her. "She lost so much blood,  
though. I thought I was going to lose her. I really thought I was going to lose her." He whispered as he reached out and took Lona's hand in his own. Okay, maybe it was alright for Carrie to hold the baby and look after her for a little bit. It would give him some time to tend to her mother.  
  
"Elmer...." What could Carrie say to him, though? It was obvious that Elmer totally believed what he was telling her, believed it to such an extent that he almost had Carrie believing it as well for a moment before she had a chance to recall that Elmer's story couldn't possibly be true.  
No way could Lona have been pregnant. Unless.... Suddenly, a possible explanation for things hit her. Maybe Lona had been pregnant and had miscarried? A miscarriage might explain Lona's current condition,  
especially if it had been complicated. She didn't think that anything had ever actually happened between Elmer and Lona, nothing that could result in a pregnancy, of course, but maybe she was wrong about that. If Elmer had been there and had seen Lona losing his child, wouldn't that be enough to trigger this snap? Carrie felt a tear slip down her cheek as she thought,  
sure she had found the correct explanation now. Now if she could just find some way to help Elmer. She couldn't just let him stay in this state and she had to get the baby back up to the nursery before someone noticed that she was missing. 


	57. chapter 57

"Elmer?" Carrie said softly after sitting quietly, just holding the baby and watching him for what felt like forever. Obviously, Sonny was having a problem finding Louis to help them and she didn't feel like she could leave this baby here much longer without possible serious repercussions for Elmer. She just hoped that the baby's mother would be understanding once she found out what had happened. And she really hoped that Lona would be okay too. Her friend hadn't stirred once the entire time she had been in the room and she was starting to get more than a little worried. "Elmer, don't you think that we ought to see about getting Lona upstairs no so that someone can take care of her?"  
  
"She's comfortable here. Hook and Chris thought it would be better, would let her have some privacy." Elmer said as he gently stroked Lona's hand for another moment before moving over to Carrie. "Hey, why don't you let me have Emma back now, okay?" After holding Emma practically since her birth, his arms didn't feel right without her in them.  
  
Okay, this wasn't good. Elmer looked pretty determined to get the baby back this time and Carrie wasn't sure what in the world she could do to keep him away from her. Elmer had seen Chris and Hook had been down there. How much did they know about what was going on? Obviously they couldn't know about Elmer's current condition, of course, about the fact that he had snatched a baby and was imagining that it was his and Lona's.  
She was shocked that they had actually trusted him to look after Lona,  
though. Maybe that meant that they were going to be coming back soon? She sure hoped someone was. She didn't know how much longer she could manage the situation with Elmer without some help. He was obviously seriously messed up.  
  
"Listen, Elmer, why don't you let me take her upstairs for you?"  
Carrie said, inspiration for a way to get the baby safely away from Elmer suddenly hitting her. She hated to leave him alone, of course, and she definitely didn't want to leave Lona alone without anyone to tend her with how sick she appeared to be but something definitely needed to be done about the baby quickly.  
  
"She's fine here. And she's going to get hungry again soon.  
She'll need her mom to feed her. Come on, let me have her now." Elmer said as he frowned slightly at Carrie. Why in the world wasn't she just handing Emma over? He hadn't thought that the nervous nurse was that fond of babies. He suddenly smiled slightly. Emma was cuter than any other baby that he had seen, though. He supposed it was understandable that Carrie would want to hang onto her for a bit.  
  
Oh, Elmer was definitely far gone. Carrie was actually glad he was a bit out there, though. At least he couldn't see how she was reacting now. She shook her head slightly as she thought of it. Okay, Elmer had done some nutty things but she had never expected him to just snap like this. Of course, considering the losses he had experienced.... She vaguely recalled his brother from when she was doing her nurse's training.  
That had to have been a nightmare for Elmer do deal with, to have his only sibling commit suicide like that. Then losing his mother and Carrie knew that Elmer's relationship with Louis had never been the best for some reason. It must have all ended up being too much for Elmer to deal with was all that she could figure. And if Lona had been pregnant and had lost the baby.... Poor Elmer. Carrie felt another tear slipping down her cheek. It didn't seem fair for him to keep losing his family like he had.  
No wonder he had cooked up an imaginary family for himself. She just hoped that the baby's real parents would be understanding when they were told.  
Elmer didn't need to be punished. He needed sympathy and people to show him how much they cared at this point.  
  
"Carrie, are you okay?" Elmer asked anxiously as he caught sight of the tear rolling down her cheek. "You really need to give me the baby now." Oh, great. She was probably about to faint again. She really,  
really needed to see someone about that. Either that or seek a new line of work. Possibly librarian might be a nice, safe career? Well, if she stayed out of the Thriller and Mystery sections, it might be. "Carrie?"  
  
"Listen, Elmer, you really ought to let me take the baby upstairs,  
okay? Someone needs to check her out. Don't you want that?" Okay, Elmer obviously was totally convinced the baby was his. Carrie would go along with that for the moment. Maybe she could use it to get him to let her get the baby back where she belonged.  
  
"Hook and my dad took a look and Chris too. They said she's fine."  
Elmer told her. "Now come on, Carrie, let me have her, okay? Lona's going to wake up soon." He definitely didn't want Lona seeing Carrie holding the baby. He wasn't sure that she would think it was such a good idea to let her do that with how much Carrie passed out.  
  
"But none of them work with babies, now do they?" Carrie said,  
turning slightly so that Elmer couldn't just snatch the baby away easily.  
She had to get him to let her leave with the baby and soon. He was going to be in so much trouble if she couldn't fix this.  
  
Well, that was true. Of course, the anteater seemed to know a bit about children but it wasn't like Elmer could tell Carrie about him. And now that she had mentioned his father and Hook's lack of experience with kids, a bit of worry was starting to creep in. What if they had missed something with Emma? She looked perfectly fine to him but....  
  
"I'll be happy to run her up to the nursery and get them to check her for you." Carrie could tell that Elmer was wavering. She felt bad about doing this, like she was tricking him and taking advantage of his confused state, but she didn't see what other choice that she had. "And don't you need to be taking care of Lona? You can't do that and manage a baby at the same time. Let me take her upstairs and give you a break."  
Using Elmer's affections for Lona as well definitely felt wrong but.... It was for his own good, though. She firmly reminded herself of that. All of this was for Elmer's own good. When he regained his sanity, he would think her for it!  
  
"I don't know...." Elmer definitely didn't want to let Emma out of his sight but what Carrie had said was definitely inducing some concern for his daughter's wellbeing. If anything happened to her.... "Maybe when Lona wakes up and I can talk to her." He said after a moment's thought.  
He couldn't just make decisions without her input.  
  
"Elmer, come on. Lona needs her rest right now. It will be good for her to have the baby somewhere else for a little while. Come on. I'll bring her right back if the doctor says it's okay. Just let me run her upstairs. It's so cold down here, you know. It isn't a good place for a newborn baby." Carrie was definitely laying it on thick now, trying to get Elmer to agree with her. She had to get the baby safely out of here and quickly. 


	58. chapter 58

Elmer looked at Carrie uncertainly, trying to decide what he should do. He definitely didn't want to let Emma out of his sight and knew that if Lona woke up and found her daughter missing, she would totally freak.  
At the same time, though, he knew that she would want the baby properly looked after and what Carried had said about his dad and Hook not really knowing a whole lot about babies definitely was causing him to waver.

"I'll just take her upstairs for you so you can stay right here with Lona and look after her, okay?" Carrie said gently. She really,  
really didn't want to do this to Elmer. She knew that she was taking advantage of his feelings for Lona terribly as well as his current confused state in thinking that the baby was his child but she didn't see what other choice she had. "Come on, Elmer. I'm sure you want some time alone with Lona and I'll bring the baby back as soon as one of the doctors says that it's okay. I promise." Saying that, that definitely caused a pain to run across Carrie, knowing that once she left the room, Elmer wasn't going to see the baby again. She slowly stood, though, and started for the door.  
It had to be done and the faster the better.

Carrie's movement was enough to snap Elmer out of his indecision about what he should do. Okay, so his dad and Hook weren't experts with babies but he was sure that they knew enough that they wouldn't miss any major problems. Emma was fine! And the idea of letting his little girl out of his sight.... No, he definitely wasn't going to be doing that, not after how close he had come to losing her. "Carrie, let me have her back now." Elmer said firmly as he moved into Carrie's path, blocking her from the door. "I really appreciate you trying to help like this but I think my dad and Hook know enough that they wouldn't have missed anything serious.  
Emma's fine. Maybe we can get someone to come down to double check later or something but for right now, she belongs down here with me and her mother." As he spoke, he reached out and before Carrie could do anything,  
he had gathered Emma back into his arms once more. He let out a soft mental sigh as he cuddled the baby close once more. He knew that Carrie was just trying to help him and Lona out and he really appreciated it but being separated from their daughter just wasn't the way to go.

Okay, this definitely wasn't going well. Carrie felt fear wash over her as Elmer removed the baby from her grasp. What was she going to do now? As long as she had been holding onto the baby, she had felt vaguely comfortable that she could handle things and fix the situation but now with Elmer taking the baby back.... She looked from Elmer to the doorway, hoping for Sonny to return with Louis to help but there was nothing. What in the world was she going to do? She couldn't just leave Elmer here with the baby in order to search for help, not in his current mental condition. She was too afraid of what might happen if he was left alone.

"Carrie?" Elmer really hoped that he hadn't upset her by just taking the baby away. It wasn't like she understood how close he had come to losing both the band Lona, after all and why he was reluctant now to be separated from either of them. "Listen, if you really want to help out...." What would they need that he could send Carrie to get? He wanted to let her know that he appreciated her concern and wasn't brushing her off entirely. "You know, you could go and get some more baby stuff for me.  
That would really be a big help. My dad didn't really know what we needed when they finally got in here. We're kind of short on diapers and things like that." Diapers. Elmer didn't think he had ever even touched one of those things before. He really, really hoped they came with some sort of instructions.

Diapers. Okay, that gave Carrie an idea for how to get the baby back and out of there. "Hey, Elmer, listen, why don't you let me deal with that for now, okay? Do you really want to have to worry about it? I'll just run her upstairs and get the stuff. It won't take long and you won't have to deal with it." Surely that would work. From what she had seen with her older brothers, diapers were the last thing that any man ever wanted to think about.

Elmer rolled his eyes. Honestly, it was getting a little annoying that Carrie kept trying to take the baby away from him. How dumb did she really think that he was? If he could father a baby, he knew that he could manage to look after it just fine as well. He just needed a bit of practice with some things, was all. "Carrie, no. I'm going to have to learn sometime, you know." He shook his head as he looked at her. It was no wonder that Lona thought he was such an idiot if this was the way that Carrie acted in response to him around Lona. Who knows what she might have done to convince Lona he was stupid. Maybe he could ask that anteater for advice on diapers? He knew his father wouldn't know.

"Elmer, come on. Do you really want to hassle with diapers, now"  
Carrie said, forcing herself to let out a slight laugh, despite her current concerns. Honestly, did Elmer expect her to believe that he was interested in learning how to deal with diapers? He was a guy, after all, and a rather immature one at that.

"Are you trying to get me in trouble with Lona?" Elmer replied with a pointed look at Carrie. "How hard could it be? Why don't you go get them now, okay?"

This definitely wasn't going well. Carrie knew that she was never going to get Elmer to hand over the baby at this point and she didn't know how long she could stay down here without making him suspicious. She edged away from him and over to Lona's side, looking down with concern at her friend. Lona definitely looked very ill. "Elmer, how long has it been since someone looked at her?"

"She's fine. She's just tired from the baby." Elmer felt a bit of worry wash over him as he moved to stand by Carrie. He forced that away firmly, though. Worry now wouldn't help the situation and besides, his dad and Hook had both said that Lona was going to be fine. He settled down into his seat once more, adjusting his hold on the baby so that he could cuddle her securely with one arm and use the other hand to hold Lona's hand in his.

"Has she been awake at all?" Carrie asked gently. She couldn't believe that Hook and Chris had just left Lona down here with only Elmer to care for her. How desperate could they be for some make out time, after all?

"Long enough to feed the baby and for us to decide on her name"  
Elmer wasn't going to bring up the personal stuff they had discussed, the things concerning their relationship, with anyone.

Feeding the baby? Lona had.... Carrie shook her head slightly.  
Was Elmer imagining that part? She knew he definitely had a fertile imagination, after all. She really hoped that he had been. She didn't want to think of what might happen if Lona had actually woke up for a brief time and Elmer had convinced her that the baby was actually theirs. She would be so hurt when she found out the truth.

"Listen, Elmer, I'm going to go and call someone to bring down some stuff, okay? Lona probably needs some fresh clothes too, don't you think"  
Carrie told him. I'll just be right in the other room. You just stay there with her and the baby." She hated to get more people involved but she didn't see what other choice she had at this point. Something had to be done fast before this situation ended up getting even worse than it already was. 


	59. chapter 59

Carrie looked down at the phone, trying to think of who she could call, who could be trusted to handle this entire situation quietly. She really didn't want to get Elmer into trouble and if he had convinced Lona that the baby was theirs somehow, she definitely knew that they would need to tread very gingerly.

Suddenly Carrie noticed something, a pile of blankets stacked together on the floor as if they had been piled away for housekeeping to come and take them for washing later. She slowly walked over and lifted one, not knowing why she was paying attention to them but.... A wave of dizziness washed over her at the sight of the blood on the blankets, some of them almost soaked totally. She felt herself starting to sway slightly and she jumped back, forcing herself away from the pile before she could faint. What had....

She shook her head slowly as she started to feel more and more sure of what had happened. Okay, with how annoyed Lona was with Elmer,  
especially after the head incident, she didn't see how it was possible but.... Of course, that didn't mean that something hadn't happened between the pair before the little incident with the head, she knew. Would Lona have actually gone so far as to sleep with Elmer, though?

Suddenly Carrie heard voices somewhere out in the hallway,  
distracting her from trying to figure out what the situation was down here.  
It didn't sound like Sonny and Louis, of course, but maybe it would be someone who could help her. She glanced through the glance, a bit uncertain as to if she should leave or not for a moment before making up her mind and ducking out of the room. Lona looked seriously ill and if she had lost all of the blood that was on those blankets, then she needed some medical attention quickly. Carrie couldn't believe that Hook and Chris hadn't gotten her moved upstairs and hadn't stayed with her. What were they thinking?

Carrie sighed with relief when she saw who was in the hallway, Dr.  
Havens and Liz. Okay, Liz wasn't the best sometimes when Carrie was feeling faint but she knew that the older nurse could be terribly discrete as well as being a good friend of Elmer's dad. Surely she could help with what was going on and keep it quiet.

"Hey!" Carrie called as she hurried towards them. "Wait a minute"  
"Carrie, have you seen Dr. James or Dr. Hook anywhere?" Henry asked as he looked up from talking to Liz and saw the young nurse hurrying towards them. As soon as they got the patients back inside it seemed as if the hospital had reverted to total normalcy when in the case of Kingdom Hospital meant a crisis every minute. "I need someone to sign off on...."

"I wish I knew where Dr. Hook was. We have a problem with Elmer and Lona. I really, really need your help. Can you come down to the sleep lab? I don't know what to do." Carrie begged.

A minute later, all three were watching through the glass as Elmer fussed over both the baby and Lona.

"Where did he get that baby?" Liz asked quietly as she turned to Carrie.

"He claims it's his with Lona." Carrie told her, disbelief plainly written on her face.

"What?" Henry shook his head. "I just did an autopsy with Lona a few days ago." Okay, maybe lab coats could hide a pregnancy to a certain extent but the scrubs worn for autopsies and surgeries certainly wouldn't.  
"Lona wasn't...." Could he have missed something, though? Okay, Elmer could be a bit nutty at times but he didn't want to think that the young man was that nutty to think he could just take a baby and pass it off as his and Lona's and expect to be believed. No, after a moment he shook his head. There was no way that he could have missed a full term pregnancy.

Liz started to speak but then stopped as her eyes fell on the bloodstained blankets. She walked over and motioned for Henry to join her as she lifted them slightly, her eyes widening at the amount of blood.  
"Are you thinking what I'm thinking?" She asked quietly a moment later,  
sorrow for Elmer washing over her as she thought about what had to have happened. How much could that boy go through? Wasn't losing his mother a few weeks before bad enough? If Lona had been pregnant and then had lost the baby....

"She definitely could have been in the early stages." Henry said as he looked at the blankets. And with Lona's age, the odds that there would be a problem with the baby that would then trigger a miscarriage were definitely elevated. He hated so much that it had happened, though.  
Although he wasn't sure about Elmer's potential as a parent, especially considering the stunt Elmer had pulled with the head, Henry felt sure that Lona would have been a very good mother.

"What can we do, though?" Carrie asked anxiously as she looked through the glass once more. "Elmer's totally convinced that that baby's theirs and I don't think we're going to be able to snap him back to reality that easily. If we can't get that baby back where it belongs soon,  
though.... I really, really don't want to get Elmer into trouble."

"He honestly thinks it's their baby?" Liz asked as she watched Elmer.

"He even says its name's Emma." Carrie said with a nod. She just hoped that between the three of them, they could think of something to do to fix things quickly. She was concerned about all three of them, Elmer,  
Lona and the baby. "And Lona just looks really sick. I think she needs to be upstairs or something."

"Did you call his father?" Liz asked. She couldn't believe that Hook had left Elmer down here alone under the circumstances. She had warned him that they young man had problems. Apparently he hadn't listened very well, though.

"Sonny went to find him but he hasn't come back yet and I'm getting worried. If Lona lost that much blood...." Liz glanced over at the blankets for a moment before having to turn away.

"Henry, go page Dr. Hook and then go upstairs to maternity, see if you can get someone who can keep things quiet down here to check on Lona"  
Liz told the older doctor after a moment's thought. She knew all too well about Elmer's problems and knew that they needed to be very careful in how they handled the situation at the moment. If they weren't careful, they could push him even further over the edge than he had already slipped.  
"I'll see about going and getting that baby away from him."

"Elmer?" Liz said softly as she stepped into the room and moved towards the bed. She shook her head slightly at the sight of Elmer sitting there so obviously wrapped up in both Lona and the baby. He was definitely one hundred percent convinced that they were a family. Liz almost hated to shatter that for him but she knew they didn't have a choice.

Elmer looked up as he heard Liz call his name, surprise to see her apparent. Well, he supposed that it was good that Carrie had got her to come down instead of some of the other nurses that he could think of,  
though. Even though Liz could be a bit gruff at times, he knew how good she was. Surely she could make sure that everything was fine with Lona.

"Carrie told me you've had a little excitement down here." Liz thought it would be best although she hated to do it, to just go along with Elmer's fantasy at this point. "Do you want to tell me what happened? Why don't you let me hold the baby for a little bit too?"

Why in the world was everyone so interested in holding a baby all of a sudden? Elmer had certainly never seen the staff making a rush on the hospital maternity ward demanding a baby to hold before. Not that any of those babies were as cute as Emma, of course. Maybe that was it. After a moment, he reached out and slipped her into Liz's arms. Surely Lona would be okay with that. At least Liz didn't have the fainting problem that Carrie did.

"There's not a whole lot to tell. Lona went into labor right before we got trapped down here by a quake. Luckily Hook and Chris got in and delivered the baby." Elmer really hated to repeat what had happened,  
hated to even think of how easily he could have lost Lona and Emma. "Lona ended up losing a lot of blood but they say she's going to be fine." She was going to be fine. Elmer was absolutely not going to let himself think any differently than that.

Liz nodded. "Okay. Henry went to get someone from maternity down to check Lona out to be sure. Why don't I just stay down here with you until they come, alright? It's going to be alright, Elmer. I promise"  
Liz had to struggle to keep her feelings hidden as she watched the young man. It broke her heart to see him like this and to know what had pushed him into this condition. Where in the world was his father? Elmer needed him now. 


	60. chapter 60

"You're telling me that my son and Lona had sex in the hospital morgue?" Louis asked as he stared at the anteater in shock. Okay, what he had just been told definitely made no sense if you tried to look at it rationally, but considering the fact that he was currently chatting with a large, talking animal, well, rationality had apparently already flown right out the window.

'In two different morgues.' Antubis told him with a nod.  
Honestly, why was he getting so upset? At least he had now been spared the worry of having to sneak and do a paternity test.

"Does Dr. Havens know about this?" Louis asked, still trying to get what he had been told to sink in. Well, if he believed the anteater,  
anyway, and he was kind of sure that he did, it meant that the baby was definitely Elmer's. That was one good thing about all of this. In a morgue, though? What was his son thinking?

'Well, I hope Dr. Havens doesn't know. He's already a bit ticked about that other naughty thing that Elmer did down in the morgue that involved a head.' Antubis said with a chuckle.

Louis laid his head down on the table and closed his eyes. Maybe if he laid still for a bit the entire situation would just go away. He couldn't believe that this was happening, that he was sitting here as a large anteater regaled him with tales of all of the naughty stuff that his son had been up to. Okay, he had known that Elmer was likely to blame for that head incident, but now that he was thinking about the head along with the other things that Elmer had been doing in the morgue.... He shook his head, trying to force those images away. A long talk with Elmer, he was definitely going to have to have a long talk with Elmer. He was fairly sure that they had had the birds and the bees talk long ago but apparently he had left a few little things out.

'What's the problem? He just did it in a morgue. It's not so bad down there. Nice and private anyway.' Antubis said.

"Nice and private except for peeping anteaters, apparently. Do you watch everything?" Louis said as he glared at the creature.

'Pretty much. So, what's so bad about him doing it in the morgue?  
He did pretty well seeing as it was his....'

"I am not discussing this!" Louis said firmly. No, Elmer would die if he knew his father was having a discussion about his son's sexual history or lack there of until the morgue visit, especially considering who the animal he was discussing it with was. "I have to get back and check on them. Lona doesn't need to be alone right now." Okay, Elmer was there but he wasn't really sure how his son could be expected to balance a newborn baby and any suddenly needed medical tasks. Best that there was another person at least close by until they were sure that Lona was definitely on the mend.

'Fine.' Antubis said as he followed Louis out and down the hallway. 'So, what's so bad about the morgue anyway? At least he didn't do what Dr. Henshaw from proctology did with the cole slaw. Do you know if that's illegal? Carnal knowledge of a vegetable?' Antubis had done a bit of reading of the law over the years especially before disposing of that lawyer, but he couldn't recall seeing anything about that one.

"You're making that up!" Louis said firmly. Okay, Henshaw was a bit strange but surely he wouldn't....

'I wouldn't eat the cole slaw if I were you. He did a few things with it that probably violated a health code somewhere.' Antubis told Louis with a chuckle at the sight of the expression on the human's face.  
'So, what's the word for that sexual preference, now? Vegetablesexual?'

Louis was thrilled when he spotted Sonny coming down the hallway.  
Maybe he would distract the anteater temporarily. Had he done anything odd and sexual within the hospital, perhaps? Louis was willing to listen if he had. He was pretty much willing to listen to anything that wasn't talk of Dr. Henshaw and his love affair with the salad bar. "Sonny!" He called, waving the younger doctor over.

"I've been looking all over for you!" Sonny called, relief apparent on his face when he spotted Louis. He just hoped that Elmer's father didn't take the news too hard. How could he break it to him gently?  
"Hey, Louis, you know that Elmer has some problems, right?" No, after he said it, he realized that probably wasn't the gentlest but maybe at this point speed was more important than tact.

"Well, I do now. What's wrong?" Louis asked. Sonny looked seriously worried about something and Louis felt a bit of worry for his son starting to build. Had something happened down in the lab? Maybe he shouldn't have left but he knew that Elmer wanted the time with Lona and he felt they deserved a bit of privacy.

"I think you better come down to the sleep lab and see. Carrie's with him right now. He's seriously lost it this time." Sonny said as he motioned for Louis to follow him. He just hoped that Louis could do something to help Elmer, to snap him out of his current state. Sonny was more than a bit frightened for his friend. What could have caused him to just snap like that? 


End file.
